The book of antelopes, vol. 4 (of 4)Sclater, Philip Lutley
Science
The book of antelopes, vol. 4 (of 4)
Sclater, Philip Lutley
Antelopes
“The Sable calves are mostly born in November and December (spring
and early summer), but I have shot cows heavy with young at the
same time that others had good-sized calves.”
Passing northwards of the Zambesi we find the Sable Antelope recorded
by Peters, in his ‘Reise nach Mossambique,’ as met with in the
Portuguese dominions west of Tette, and on the woody plains of Sena.
In Nyasaland Mr. Crawshay tells us it is not by any means evenly
distributed, but appears to be plentiful in some places. In the Shiré
Highlands, as Sir Harry Johnston writes, the Sable is one of the
commonest Antelopes, frequenting the wooded hills rather than the
low-lying plains, and we have seen many heads obtained by Mr. Sharpe,
the late Capt. Sclater, and others from this district.
Sir Harry Johnston believes that the Sable Antelope is also found on
the Nyasa-Tanganyika plateau; but it has not, so far as we are aware,
been obtained there by Mr. Sharpe, Mr. Crawshay, Mr. Yule, and others
who have traversed that district. It, however, certainly occurs again
further north in the coast-district of German East Africa. Herr Oscar
Neumann informs us that during his journey through German and British
East Africa he never saw a specimen of _H. niger_ alive, but only
the skin of one that had been killed near Tanga on the coast. His
opinion is that the species is not now to be met with anywhere in the
interior of German East Africa, but that there are still some herds of
it left on the coast opposite Zanzibar, near Tanga and Pangani. In this
district it was formerly hunted by Sir John Kirk, in whose collection
there is a head of the Sable Antelope, which has been examined by
Sclater. The specimen, as Sir John kindly informs us, was obtained
about twelve miles inland, somewhat to the north of the River Wami, in
the winter of 1884–5.
Whether the Sable Antelope occurs much further north than this seems
to be by no means certain. Sir Harry Johnston has enumerated it among
the Antelopes of the Kilimanjaro district (Kilimanjaro Exp. p. 354).
Sir John Willoughby had a shot at what “_he believed_ was a herd
of ‘Sable Antelopes’” on his journey from Mombasa into the interior
in 1886 (East Africa, pp. 46, 47), but did not secure a specimen. Mr.
Jackson and Mr. Gedge “_saw_ a herd of about ten or twelve near
Gulu Gulu in November 1888,” but Mr. Jackson admits that no European
has yet bagged a Sable Antelope in British East Africa.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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