THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
the coastal districts with, as a rule, rather thick and strongly ridged 
horns, to which the name of Haggard’s oribi {Ourebia haggardi) has 
been given, whilst the oribis of the interior plateaux, which it was once 
thought all belonged to the Abyssinian species, have been recently split 
up into several geographical races, such as Cotton’s oribi ( Ourebia cottoni) 
and the Gwas N’gishu oribi ( Ourebia microdon ), both from the Gwas N’gishu 
plateau, and the Kenya oribi ( Ourebia kenyce ) from the Mount Kenya district. 
The Abyssinian oribi ( Ourebia montana) ranges from Abyssinia through 
the Sudan to the east of the Nile, whilst in the Bahr-el-Ghazal province 
to the west of that river a form of oribi is found which is very similar to 
Gosling’s oribi ( Ourebia goslingi), from the upper part of the Welle Valley, 
which is, I believe, very closely related to the Gambian oribi ( Ourebia 
nigricaudata). 
The oribis which I shot myself — thirteen in all — in the Bahr-el-Ghazal 
province seemed to be distinctly smaller and carried shorter horns than 
the oribis I had previously shot on the Gwas N’gishu plateau of British 
East Africa. They differed very much in colour individually, some being 
of a light yellowish colour, whilst others were very dark brown. In some, 
too, the tails showed no dark hairs, whilst in others they were very nearly 
black. In all these oribis of the Bahr-el-Ghazal the light -coloured streak 
above the eye was very much more pronounced than in any other oribis I 
have met with either in East or South Africa. 
As is the case with duikers, bushbucks, and other African antelopes, 
oribis live and appear to thrive equally well in the hot and steamy coast 
regions of Portuguese East Africa and on the high, cold plateaux of 
Mashonaland, and they are, too, equally at home in the hot coast regions 
of British East Africa and the open downlands of the interior, which rise 
to a height of over 8,000 ft. above sea-level. On the highlands they live for 
the most part on the bare open grass downs or in the thin bush which 
clothes their slopes, but at a lower altitude they are found in open forest 
or amongst scattered bush. They are not gregarious, but live in pairs or 
three together — male, female, and last year’s fawn. They are sharp-sighted 
little animals, and often difficult to approach in ground over which they 
can command an extended view; but in long grass they will often lie 
motionless till nearly trodden upon. After the grass has been burnt off, 
and where there is little cover, a feeding oribi, should it see a human being 
approaching, especially should he be mounted, will often squat down, and, 
after stretching out its head and neck flat along the ground, lie perfectly 
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