The book of antelopes, vol. 2 (of 4)Sclater, Philip Lutley
Science
The book of antelopes, vol. 2 (of 4)
Sclater, Philip Lutley
Antelopes
Harris, in his great work on the ‘Game and Wild Animals of Southern
Africa,’ published in 1840, figures the “Reitbok,” as he calls it,
in his twenty-seventh portrait, along with the Wart-hog, and with an
appropriate landscape of reeds and water. In those days the Reedbuck
appears to have been common throughout the Colony, and is described by
Harris as follows:--“This species resides either in pairs or in very
small families along the margins of springs and swampy ground abounding
in flags and rushes, or among the sedges that choke the channel
of desiccated torrents, which flow only during the winter season.
Specimens occurred throughout our route, chiefly to the eastward of the
Colony, and in the tropical streams ‘’mongst reeds and willows that
o’erhang the flood’; but owing to the shy and secluded habits of the
animal, it was not often seen, nor is it in fact anywhere so common as
on the western coast, where the attraction of water--a rare element in
those barren regions--sometimes causes it to congregate in the open
plain.”
Twenty years later, in 1861, Mr. Layard states that the Reedbuck was
hardly then to be met with within the Colony! It is, however, as we
are informed by Mr. W. L. Sclater, still to be found even up to the
present day, though rarely, on some places on the east coast (Bathurst
and Komgha), and in considerable numbers in the adjoining countries.
Writing in 1881, Mr. Selous tells us that a few were then still to be
found in the Transvaal, and that in Matabeleland and Mashonaland, on
both slopes of the watershed, it was very common along the banks of the
rivers. On the Manica plateau north of the Zambesi, Mr. Selous found
Reedbucks particularly abundant, and had seen as many as eight at one
time feeding in close proximity one to another. He remarks, however,
that they are animals that go in pairs, and in this particular differ
altogether from the various Waterbucks, which consort together in herds
of not more than one male to ten females.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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