518 
AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 
animals, and it is quite evident that the black livery is to 
some extent an individual character, although chiefly an age 
affair. Selous, by the comparison of dates furnished by 
sportsmen, has come to the conclusion that the black coat 
is a seasonal change, but our experience throws consider¬ 
able doubt on this opinion. We found both color phases 
equally common at the same season, and in none of the 
specimens were there any marks showing shedding or any 
process by which a seasonal coat could be acquired. Speci¬ 
mens identical in coloration with both nigroscapulata and 
vaughani from the mouth of the Bahr el Ghazal were secured 
by the Smithsonian African expedition under the direction 
of Colonel Roosevelt. Some of the upper Nile specimens 
as well as the more remote ones from the Uasin Gishu 
Plateau known as thomasi occasionally exhibit whitish ears 
having the dark tips nearly obsolete. It is probable that 
somewhere in the upper Bahr el Ghazal, perhaps in the 
vicinity of Meshra-er-Rek, the two races meet. The white¬ 
eared kob is without doubt local and confined to the extreme 
northern limit of the range of the kobs in the Nile Valley. 
Westward we find little or no change in the coloration of the 
kobs between the Nile Valley and the Senegal or Nigerian 
regions, which is a really vast extent of country. 
The flesh measurements of an adult male are: head and 
body, 61 inches; tail, 14 inches; hind foot, 17 inches; ear, 6 
inches; greatest length of skull, n inches. Four adult male 
skulls have been examined from the Bahr el Zeraf and Lake 
No district. The average of horn dimensions in these speci¬ 
mens is 18 inches in length by 14 inches in greatest spread. 
Rowland Ward, however, records a great many specimens 
from the Nile of this race, all of which have horns exceeding 
20 inches, the maximum measurement being 24^ inches. 
The Lechwi 
Onotragus 
Onotragus Gray, 1872, Cat. Rum. Brit. Mus., p. 17; type Cobus lechee. 
The genus Onotragus was founded by Gray in 1872 for 
the reception of the lechwi and based upon the character 
of the tufted tail and sublyrate shape of the horns in this 
