WATERBUCKS AND REEDBUCKS 
521 
occasionally described by closet systematists. It is a sin¬ 
gular proof of the extreme difficulty even good observers 
have in recognizing patent facts which are unexpected, that 
none of these men recognized that this White Nile antelope 
of the marshes was nearest of kin to the lechwi of the Zam¬ 
besi and other South African rivers. They persistently com¬ 
pared it either with the neighboring waterbuck, or more fre¬ 
quently with the neighboring white-eared kob; at least one 
of the systematists actually suggested that it was not dis¬ 
tinct from the latter. Yet it is difficult to understand how 
any observer of the animal in its haunts, or any student 
with specimens before him, could fail to see its real affinities. 
We had only read of the lechwi in the writings of Selous and 
other observers, but as soon as we saw the Nile riverbucks 
at home, we recognized their relationship to the riverbucks 
of the Zambesi. One of our number, when we reached 
Khartoum, wrote to Captain Stigand, who was on his way 
southward through that city, telling him that the white- 
withered antelopes were close kin to the lechwi; and, shortly 
afterward, when he had himself observed them, Captain 
Stigand confirmed this statement in a letter to Selous, which 
the latter showed us. 
We found the white-withered lechwi in large herds, some¬ 
times of forty or fifty individuals. These herds made a 
broad trail where they passed through the reeds or tall marsh- 
grass or the edges of the papyrus; and the long-hoofed an¬ 
telopes swam the deep channels without hesitation, and 
splashed their way over the soft black mire, and across the 
pools through the tough stems of the close-growing water- 
lilies. Often the marshes through which they made their 
way were so deep in water that it was up to our shoulders. 
