MRS GRAY’S KOB 
COBUS MARIA 
T HIS most handsome antelope (named after the wife of Dr J. E. 
Gray, a former keeper of the Zoological Department of the 
British Museum) was long classed with the typical waterbucks; 
but it is certainly more closely allied both structurally and 
in its habits of life to the lechwis of Central and South -Central 
Africa, which are always classed amongst the kob group. 
Thus Mrs Gray’s lechwi, or Mrs Gray’s kob, would appear to be a more 
appropriate designation than Mrs Gray’s waterbuck. 
In this species the adult males, which stand about thirty-eight inches at 
the shoulder, are very dark brown, indeed, almost black in colour, with 
sometimes a white or yellowish white patch on the back of the neck just in 
front of the withers. The ears are white with a tinge of yellow, and there is 
an incomplete circle of yellowish white round each eye. The muzzle, chin, 
and a whitish patch on the lower side of the throat are also of the same 
colour. The young males and the females at all ages are of a uniform 
dark red brown. In the old males the horns are remarkably handsome, 
growing with a wide spread and in the most graceful curves first slightly 
forwards, then with a fine sweep backwards, and finally with a sharp 
curve forwards. In fine specimens they attain a length of thirty inches, the 
record pair measuring thirty -three and a half inches. 
The coloration of the adult male Mrs Gray’s kob does not appear to 
be constant, as Mr Roosevelt found in some of those he shot that the white 
patch in front of the withers was wanting. Curiously enough, it was wanting 
in the oldest buck he obtained. It would be interesting to ascertain if any 
seasonal change takes place in the coloration of the adult males of Mrs 
Gray’s kob, as is undoubtedly the case with the race of white -eared kobs 
found in the Bahr-el-Ghazal. At present we have very little information 
on this subject, and such information is very difficult to obtain, as during 
several months of every year the haunts of Mrs Gray’s kob are almost 
inaccessible, owing to the growth of grass and reeds with which the 
country is covered. 
The range of Mrs Gray’s kob is confined to certain districts on the 
White Nile, Bahr-el-Ghazal, Sobat and Bahr-el-Zaraf Rivers in the 
neighbourhood of the Sudd regions. The most northern locality in which 
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