THE PUKU 
COBUS VARDONI 
T HIS antelope, which is the least showy both as regards its 
coloration and the size of its horns of all the kobs, was first 
discovered by Dr Livingstone near Libonta, on the Upper 
Zambesi, in 1853. A plate in “Missionary Travels” entitled 
“New African Antelopes Discovered by Oswell, Murray and 
Livingstone,” would indeed lead one to suppose that both the 
puku and the lechwi were met with in 1849, either on the Botletlie River or 
at Lake N’gami, as Mr Murray was Dr Livingstone’s travelling companion 
during that year only. But a careful perusal of the letterpress of the great 
missionary’s classic work shows conclusively that he did not recognize 
the puku as a new and distinct species of antelope until he visited the 
Zambesi for the second time in 1853. Dr Livingstone, however, in all 
probability saw puku antelopes near Sesheke, on the Zambesi, during 
his first visit there with Oswell in 1851 and also during his journey up the 
river two years later between Sesheke and Libonta, but apparently did not 
recognize them as a new species until after his arrival at the latter place. 
North of the Zambesi the range of the puku is very much the same as 
that of the lechwi, extending throughout the greater part of North-Western 
and North-Eastern Rhodesia northward to Lakes Mweru and Bengweolo, 
and eastward to Lake Tanganyika. Whilst, however, the lechwi has a very 
considerable range to the west and south-west of the Chobi River (the 
main affluent of the Upper Zambesi from the north-west), the puku is 
only found in one spot west or south of the former river, and that is in a 
very small area of ground just along its southern bank, a little to the west 
of its confluence with the Zambesi. Here in 1874 I found puku in herds of 
as many as fifty individuals, and saw as many as fifteen old males together. 
But in 1876, after the murder of Sipopo, the King of the Barotsi, and the 
subsequent disturbances, large numbers of refugees fled from the Upper 
Zambesi and camped for many months on the southern bank of the Chobi 
just in the puku area, and during that time they almost exterminated these 
antelopes, as when I paid my second visit to this part of the country in 
1877 I found that very few were left. Since that time, however, the puku on 
this part of the Chobi appear rather to have increased than decreased, as 
I am told that they are fairly numerous there to-day. The puku stands 
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