150 
SAVAGE SUDAN 
“protection” ; but physical obstacles such as that present 
small terrors to many of our big-game hunters. 
The Nile lechwi forms one of a genus of two semi- 
amphibious antelopes which possess no relations either 
in Africa or elsewhere. The second is the Zambesi 
lechwi (Onotragus lechee\ and the pair are separated by 
1000 miles of intervening space. 
The Nile lechwi is confined, not to the “ Sudd ” 
proper (which it never enters), but to those circumjacent 
Nile Lechwi, or Saddleback, chased by Shilluk Dogs. 
areas where sudd-like swamps prevail. For the actual 
Sudd itself, Nature has designed another form even 
more amphibious than the lechwi, to wit, the Situtunga 
{Lzmnotragus). Herein we find an instance of physical 
adaptation worthy of a few moments’ consideration. The 
degrees of specialisation provided by Nature to adapt each 
of these two animals respectively to its own assigned 
habitat — (let us call those habitats, in the one case, 
“ treacherous swamp ” ; in the other, “ bottomless bog ”)— 
are beautifully evidenced in the forms of their hoofs. In 
both species the hoofs are so specially elongated as to 
afford firm foothold on rotten ooze or surface-floatage 
not otherwise traversable. But in the situtunga (which is 
