ZOOLOGY 
3 ! 7 
Africa by the Sable and the Roan. Curiously enough there is no representative 
of the Oryx genus throughout all British Central Africa. This type at the present 
day is confined in its distribution to South Africa, East, North-East and North 
Africa, and Southern Arabia. As in the case of the zebra, of the giraffe, and of 
other animals quoted there is a complete break in the distribution of this genus 
between Mozambique and the West Coast of Africa. The Sable antelope is 
extremely common. Next to the Kudu, perhaps, or Mrs. Gray’s Waterbuck, it 
is the most beautiful antelope that exists. As large as a small ox with the 
graceful shape of a beautiful stag, the colours of the male being jet black and 
snow-white (and of the female bright chestnut-brown and white), the head 
surmounted by a magnificent pair of horns symmetrically ringed and describing 
almost the curve of a half circle, the long neck clothed abundantly with a black 
mane, the large, long-lashed eye, and the tufted tail, make up a beast of grand 
proportions, striking coloration and beautiful detail, whose extermination would 
be one of the worst crimes that humanity has ever perpetrated. 
Fortunately the Sable antelope is still extremely common in Nyasaland 
though it is not certain that its range extends east over the Mozambique 
province, or westward over British Central Africa. It is found, I believe, on the 
Sai'si river (on the eastern portion of the Nyasa-Tanganyika plateau). I think 
it is met with in parts of East Africa, and 1 believe that I saw one specimen of 
it near Taveita and another near the river Ruvu, as far north as the Kilimanjaro 
district. [It is sometimes difficult to tell at a distance the young male or female 
Sable from a Roan antelope, therefore as I did not secure the beast I cannot 
speak positively on this latter point though in my diary I wrote most positively 
on this occasion that I had seen a sable and was struck by the vivid contrast 
between its black and white coloration.] In any case it is not confined 
to South Africa, a legend still appearing in circles which should be well 
informed. At the present time it is one of the commonest antelopes in the 
Shire Highlands and throughout Nyasaland, where it frequents the wooded 
hills rather than the low-lying plains. I have myself only seen it in what 
might be called scrub country—rough land of red clay and rocks on. which 
grow trees of sparse foliage and of no great height. In spite of their very 
marked colours both the male and female sable become singularly in¬ 
visible in this low forest, their bodies getting mixed up with the glooms of 
tree trunks in black shadow or brown light. There would appear to be these 
differences between the sable of Nyasaland and that of South Africa. The 
Nyasaland variety is rather larger, the neck is somewhat thicker but the mane 
a little shorter and the ears are slightly longer and have a black tip at the end 
which I believe is missing in the South African sable. 
It would seem to be a general rule that where the sable is found there the 
roan antelope, its near congener, is not to be met with. This animal is coloured 
somewhat like the immature male and female of the sable—chestnut with a 
tendency to black, and with bold white markings. Its horns are not so 
handsome as those of the sable. The ears are even longer than in the 
sable and the tips more recurved and ending in a tuft of black hair. 1 In 
all the Hippotragine antelopes (including the Oryxes) the female is horned 
as well as the male, a sign, of course, of great specialisation. The range of 
the roan antelope apparently lies mainly outside British Nyasaland though 
both Mr. Sharpe and myself have sometimes thought that it existed in the 
Ruo district and across that river in Portuguese territory, and it has been shot 
1 The culmination of this development of the ear is seen in the fringe-eared Oryx (Oryx callotis). 
