418 
ELEPHANT-BUNTING IN EAST AFRICA 
CHAP. 
of feeding in company harmoniously; indeed, they have a 
particular predilection for such companionship—it tends to the 
common safety. Thus, giraffe, zebra, antelopes, and even 
rhinoceroses, may sometimes be seen in close proximity, and 
(with, perhaps, the exception of the last) clearly do so from 
choice, with the object of getting warning from each other of 
approaching danger ; and—apart from carnivora—wild animals 
seldom or never resent the mingling of those of other varieties 
with their herds. But I fancy that, in most cases where a 
single Grevy’s stallion is noticed in company with zebra of the 
other kind, the latter are all males. Like all such polygamous 
beasts, the weaker males consort together in separate herds, 
turned out by the strongest stallions from among the mares. 
The large male grevyi whose skin I brought to England, 
and which I had shot among a troop of the small zebra, had 
his neck all scarred with recent wounds, evidently inflicted by 
the teeth of a rival, just as horses or donkeys bite each other 
in fighting. 
Another animal on which it may be worth while to take 
the opportunity of here remarking is the oryx of these regions. 
I had always regarded it as the ordinary “ beisa,” but Messrs. 
Rowland Ward have pointed out to me that the specimens 
which I brought home resembled in some respects “ callotis,” 
though having no sign of a tassel to the ears. The ears seem 
somewhat more pointed than those of the: Somaliland oryx, 
the stripe on the cheeks is more defined and descends lower— 
in some cases meeting the dark patch on the throat, 1 —and the 
animal itself is considerably larger than the typical “ beisa,” 
albeit resembling the latter in the shade of its general colouring. 
Thus this may be an intermediate form, differing slightly 
from both these accepted species, just as we find a gradation 
of varieties of the smaller zebras from South to North Africa. 
It would not surprise me to find that the “topi” of Bassu 
1 There is a certain amount of variation among individuals as to the throat-markings. 
In one specimen which I have, the dark line down the dewlap is absent altogether. 
