304 
EASTERN ETHIOPIA 
XXIV 
all the species have well-marked face-glands. The 
name dniker or diver is derived from the habit these 
antelopes have of diving quickly in and out of grass or 
bushes when alarmed. Duikers are found throughout 
British East Africa and Uganda, and their horns and 
skulls adorn the walls of settlers' houses. In Uganda 
there is a species, scarcely larger than a rabbit, called 
the blue duiker ; its skin is a regular article of 
exchange in the market at Mengo. The Baganda 
make rugs of the skins by sewing them neatly 
together. 
Zoologists find it difficult to frame definitions for 
distinguishing antelopes from sheep, oxen, and goats. 
The difficulty in this matter of classification is betrayed 
in their names. Even the familiar word gazelle comes 
from the Arabic ghazal^ a wild goat. Then the high- 
sounding classical names derived from Greek and Latin 
authors, as applied to these animals, bring out the 
difficulty of deciding between antelope and buffalo 
in the case of the gnu and hartebeest, for they are 
grouped as bubaline antelopes {huhalus, a buffalo). 
The big ox-like antelope, the eland, is taurotragus. 
The elegant roan antelope {Ili'p'potvagus equmus) has 
many equine characters but molar teeth like those of 
oxen. The genus to which the reedbucks belong has a 
name, Cervicapra, which suggests that the species 
comprised in it have characters which are cervine and 
hircine as well as antilopine. In spite of all these facts 
an antelope is not a goat. The early Dutch colonists 
called the antelope bok (pronounced buck) which means 
a goat. In this way arose such compounds as springbok, 
stein bok, duikerbok, etc. 
A study of the generic and specific names imposed 
on antelopes by zoologists shows a strange mixture of 
classical names like oryx and strepsiceros, harnessed to 
native names like kudu, jimela, and gnu; or names 
expressing affinity, such as cervicapra; physical char¬ 
acters like imberbis (beardless); lucky sportsmen and 
