The book of antelopes, vol. 2 (of 4)Sclater, Philip Lutley
Science
The book of antelopes, vol. 2 (of 4)
Sclater, Philip Lutley
Antelopes
Height about 39 inches; length of body 43 inches. Fur long and coarse,
on back blackish, hairs whitish at the base; paler on the flanks, and
passing into white on the middle line of the belly and on the inner
sides of the hind limbs. A conspicuous white line across the rump
reaches down to the inside of the flanks on both sides. Feet dark
brown, with a white line round the hoofs and across the upper edge of
the false hoofs, which are distinct. Sides of face and forehead dark
brown, nose black; muffle moist, naked, black; line round the nose,
lips, and chin, and line over the eye extending in front of eye, white.
Irregular line round the neck greyish white. Ears hairy, inside white,
outside black, brownish at the base, about 7½ inches long. Tail dark
brown, beneath white, about 11 inches long, hair beyond 4 inches.
Horns large and strong, lengthened, sublyrate, inclined backwards and
then forwards at the tips; strongly ringed in front for three-fourths
from their bases.
_Female_ similar, but hornless; teats 4.
_Hab._ South Africa, from the Limpopo northwards, and along
the coast through Nyasaland to German and British East Africa
and to the Shebeyli River in Somaliland.
The Waterbuck, which is readily known from all the allied Antelopes by
the white ribbon which passes over the rump and is carried down to the
thighs on both sides, has, as we shall presently show, an extensive
distribution in Africa, but was first described from a specimen
obtained in the interior of South Africa. One of the early African
travellers--Steedman--met with it in 1832 “about 25 days’ journey
north of the Orange River between Latakoo and the western coast.” This
somewhat vague locality, which was given by Ogilby when he described
Steedman’s specimen before the Zoological Society in March 1833,
probably indicates some part of Damaraland.
In 1840 Sir Cornwallis Harris figured this species--not, we must
allow, very accurately--in his great work on the ‘Game and Wild
Animals of South Africa.’ Although not found within the limits of
Cape-land proper, the Waterbuck, Harris tells us, abounded in his days
on the margins of the willow-grown Limpopo and its tributaries, in
the “rippling waters of which it delights to lave its grizzled sides,
immersing itself up to the chin during the heat of the day and rolling
in its favourite soiling-pool for hours together.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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