426 
AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 
habits. Their haunts are forests or dense bush upon which 
they browse, and where they lead a solitary life. Like most 
of the deer they are very local and seldom range over an 
area of more than a few miles. In external appearance the 
resemblance in body and shape of head, ears, and tail is 
singularly close. The genus comprises a single species which 
splits up into numerous geographical races. Nowhere, how¬ 
ever, are two races found occupying the same territory. 
The nyala, a large, transversely striped antelope, bearing in 
the male a long throat mane similar to that of the greater 
koodoo, is usually considered a member of this genus; but, 
owing to its differences in coloration and other structural 
differences, it has been distinguished as a genus, Nyala. 
Tragelaphus ranges throughout the whole of Ethiopia from 
the Cape northward to the southern edge of the Sahara 
Desert and the northern limits of Abyssinia. The altitudi¬ 
nal range covers a wide area from sea-level to 9,000 feet. 
The only fossil species assigned to the genus is one from 
the Miocene of Germany, but it is of very doubtful identity 
with the bushbucks of Africa. 
The Bushbuck 
Tragelaphus scriptus 
The bushbucks range from the Abyssinian highlands and 
the adjacent Red Sea coast westward along the southern 
border of the Sahara Desert to Senegal, and south through¬ 
out the whole continent to the Cape. They are absent only 
from the open plains, waterless deserts, and from altitudes 
above 10,000 feet. 
Owing to the great geographical variation in color and 
the marked sexual color differences in some races, the species 
is difficult of definition. The forms which we now call races 
were nearly all described as species, owing to this great 
variation and the lack of specimens showing intermediate 
characters. 
Scriptus may be described as a bushbuck having a large 
white patch on the lower throat, another on the upper 
throat, two white spots on the cheeks below the eye, white 
lips, chin, and gular region, a white band at the axilla and 
the groin, a white stripe down the inside of the legs to the 
