THE IMPALA ANTELOPE 
jEPYCEROS MELAMPUS 
O NE of the most strikingly beautiful of African game 
animals, the impala (/ Epyceros melampus ), has a wide 
A distribution, for although it is entirely absent from the 
" whole of Africa to the west of the Nile, in East Africa it 
ranges from the Tana River to Zululand, and west of Lake 
Nyassa is found on the Zambesi and all its tributaries, 
as well as in Southern Angola and all the country lying between that 
province and the Kalahari. Impalas are also sometimes met with in 
the depths of the Kalahari itself, where surface-water is entirely absent; 
but in such cases they obtain a good substitute for water in the juice 
of the wild melons, which grow plentifully in certain districts of that 
waterless region. Otherwise, I believe that impala antelopes are never 
met with except in the near vicinity of water. The local race of impalas 
inhabiting the country near Mossamedes, in Southern Angola, is distin- 
guished by the presence of a black streak down the nose, but differs 
in no other respect, either in habits or outward appearance, from 
animals of the same species found in other parts of Africa. There is, 
however, a remarkable difference in the average size of the horns of impala 
antelopes in different parts of Africa, as well as great individual variation 
in this respect in the same district. In British East Africa impala antelopes 
undoubtedly attain their maximum horn development; whilst in Portu- 
guese East Africa — on the Lower Zambesi and in the Pungwe River 
district — these appendages are very small and stunted; yet between the 
smallest pair of impala horns to be obtained in South-East Africa and the 
very handsome specimens once obtainable on the Upper Limpopo, animals 
carrying horns of every intermediate size could be found in the intervening 
country, and the best Limpopo heads of forty years ago were better than 
many East African heads. It appears to me, therefore, impossible to 
separate impala antelopes into different races or species according to the 
size of their horns, as has been attempted by some naturalists. 
In the impala the males alone carry horns, which are of a most graceful 
form, being somewhat lyrate in shape, and in the finest examples 
sometimes reach a length of thirty or even thirty-one inches on the curve, 
and are deeply ringed on the front face to within a short distance of the 
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