MAMMALS OF THE SAHARA [Illustration] CHAPTER XIII MAMMALS OF THE SAHARA Lacking the wings of the feathered world, the animal life of the Sahara has not the same highly convenient means of passing from place to place, when the necessity arises to evacuate exhausted feeding ground and find more favourable country. Therefore, if hard pressed, they move carefully, and only at certain seasons, and are apt to cling closely to favoured regions, where such are found. Any real migratory instinct is, with a few exceptions, not pronounced in the animals of the Sahara, and by far the greater number remain closely confined within their natural types of country, even though these are impoverished and struggle for an existence is keen. If, on a map of the western portion of Africa, we glance along a line from south to north, starting from Kano in Northern Nigeria, which is about latitude 12°, it is possible to get a rapid idea from the creatures of the country of the change from tropical regions to Saharan regions. At Kano may be found that loathsome reptile, the Crocodile, and, in the same latitude, Lion; west of Katsina, Elephants, and scattered groups of Giraffe right to the shores of the Sahara in the bush country of Damergou. The northern boundary of Damergou, which runs along the outer edge of the bush belt, may be taken to be about latitude 16°; and it is there, at the junction between bush and desert, that one finds the line of decided change. Curiously enough, as if to incite one to remember, before entering the desert, the good things that go with a bush-land, it is close to, and on, that very line that four of the most handsome Gazelle and Antelope of Africa are to be found at their best: the White Oryx, Addax, Red-fronted Gazelle, and Damas Gazelle.