REEDBUCKS 
CERVICAPRA 
W HEREVER in Africa any species of waterbuck or kob 
antelope is found, in the same district one or other of 
the local races into which reedbucks have been divided 
will also surely be met with. In fact, it may be said that 
the range of the reedbuck is not only co- extensive with 
that of all the species of kobs and waterbucks, but that it 
is also found in many parts of Africa in which no representative of either 
of these species exists. 
In size reedbucks are somewhat smaller than kobs. They are, too, more 
gracefully built, and are distinguished from those antelopes by their 
short fluffy tails and the possession of a circular black patch about the 
size of a shilling and altogether devoid of hair on each side of the head, 
below the ears. In some, though not in all, of the races of the reedbuck 
there is a soft gristly cushion covered with thin black skin at the base of 
the horns on the front side, which never turns into horn or becomes hard 
with age. In all the reedbucks the horns are black, but they vary much 
in shape and size, though they always bend forwards. In the typical 
southern race, and also in some of the northern forms met with in the 
Bahr-el-Ghazal province and on the White and Blue Nile, they have a 
wide spread, and will average over twelve inches in length, sometimes 
reaching a measurement of from fifteen to seventeen inches. Curiously 
enough, the range of the typical reedbuck of South Africa and its nearest 
allies to the north of the equator seems to be cut across by that of the 
various races of the Bohor reedbuck ( Cervicapra redunca) which are found 
from the Gambia to the most easterly districts of British East Africa. 
In the typical West African Bohor the horns are short and very sharply 
curved forwards, with the points turned inwards, and in the East African 
Bohor also this type of horn is most usual; but on the Gwas N’gishu 
plateau, in British East Africa, I found reedbucks, even in the same valley, 
carrying horns of two quite distinct types. One of these was the short, 
thick, sharply crooked Bohor type, whilst in the other the horns more 
resembled the South African type of reedbuck horn in shape, and were 
not nearly so sharply crooked forward. In none of the reedbucks I have 
shot in East Africa was there a soft cushion at the base of the horns. 
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