The book of antelopes, vol. 3 (of 4)Sclater, Philip Lutley
Science
The book of antelopes, vol. 3 (of 4)
Sclater, Philip Lutley
Antelopes
The late Mr. F. Holmwood, formerly H.B.M. Consul-General at Zanzibar,
wrote to us, “I have met with the Pallah in the countries of Usagara
and Uzeguha, about 150 miles straight inland from Zanzibar, where they
were very plentiful. The country has an elevation of 500 feet and is
well watered. The Pallah go in troops of from 15 to 120. I once saw a
pack of wild dogs hunt and run down one of these Antelopes which they
first separated from a large herd.”
In British East Africa the Pallah is well known, and has been obtained
by all the great sportsmen that have visited that territory. Mr. H.
C. V. Hunter, in his appendix to Sir John Willoughby’s ‘East Africa,’
speaks of this Antelope as “common everywhere in thin bush and on
the plains.” Dr. Abbott, as recorded by Mr. True, sent to Washington
a good series of specimens obtained in 1889 from Taveta and Mount
Kilimanjaro, where it had likewise been met with by Sir Harry Johnston
during the Kilimanjaro Expedition of 1884. Mr. F. J. Jackson, in his
notes on Antelopes published in the first volume of ‘Big Game Shooting’
of the Badminton Library, tells us that the Pallah is not met with in
the coast-district of British East Africa. “But it occurs in small
herds about 60 miles inland, and is plentiful at Adda and in the Teita
country, and is found as far north as Turkwel in suitable localities,
that is, in park-like open bush and thinly-wooded country, not far from
water.” “The best heads,” Mr. Jackson says, “are obtained between
Lakes Navaisha and Baringo, particularly in the vicinity of the small
salt-lake Elmatita, where these beautiful beasts inhabit the open woods
of juniper-trees.” In his paper on the Antelopes of the Mau district,
recently read before the Zoological Society, Mr. Jackson likewise
speaks of this Antelope, and again mentions the large size of the horns
of the bucks in that part of British East Africa, which he gives as 22
and 23 inches from base to tip.
[Illustration: Fig. 47.
Head of Pallah, ♂, front view.]
Whether the Pallah ranges further north than British East Africa and
the neighbouring district of Turkwel is perhaps not quite certain,
though it may possibly be the case. Our only authority on the subject
is Heuglin, who states that the Pallah occurs on the White Nile at
Scherk-el-Akaba, and is “very common” on the Djur River, where it is
known by the Arabic name of ‘Om-gàba,’ or ‘Om-sàba.’ But Heuglin’s
observations on this point, so far as we know, have not been
confirmed, and we have never seen specimens from this locality.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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