WATERBUCKS AND KOBS 
THE WATERBUCK ( COBUS ELLIPSIPRYMNUS) 
AND ITS CONGENERS 
/M ' if HE genus “ Cobus ” includes all the different species of water - 
bucks and kob antelopes which are found in the neighbourhood 
of all African lakes and rivers south of the Sahara and Abyssinia, 
with the exception of those regions in the extreme south and 
south-west of the continent, where there is too little permanent 
water to suit their requirements, or from which they have been 
driven by a dense native population. 
In all the antelopes belonging to this group the females are hornless, but 
in the males these appendages are always present, and in several species 
are not only of large size, but also of great beauty. In all, the horns, after 
first bending backwards, curve forwards in a graceful sweep. They are 
strongly ridged from the base upwards for about two -thirds of their length, 
the remaining portion being smooth and polished. Perhaps the best -known 
member of the genus cobus is the common waterbuck ( Cobus ellipsi- 
prymnus). This handsome antelope, which stands nearly four feet in 
height at the shoulder, is of a uniform dark greyish brown colour, with 
a broad white elliptical ring over the hind quarters, from which it takes 
its specific name. The hair is coarse and shaggy, especially on the neck, 
which, with the shapeliness of the head and the length and beauty 
of the deeply ringed, forward -curving horns, combines to make a fine 
waterbuck head an especially handsome trophy. The typical common 
waterbuck is found throughout the eastern side of Africa from Zululand 
to Somaliland, and it is also plentiful in the country lying between the 
Limpopo and the Zambesi, as well as on the Botletlie, Chobi and Okavango 
Rivers. The longest pair of waterbuck horns I ever saw in South Africa 
measured thirty-five inches over the curve, and the animal which bore 
them was shot on the Limpopo River. It always appeared to me that the 
waterbucks which I met with on the Limpopo and its tributaries grew to 
a greater size and carried on the average longer and heavier horns than 
those I saw further north and east. On the Chobi, as well as along the 
Central Zambesi, and in Matabeleland and Mashonaland, I never saw a 
pair of waterbuck horns which measured over thirty -two inches in length, 
and thirty-inch horns were exceedingly rare, though waterbucks abounded 
126 
