“The principal food of the Oryx near Massowa is a coarse grass, almost resembling a diminutive bamboo. They appear to be grazers rather than browsers, although, like all Antelopes, they occasionally eat the young shoots of Acacia and other trees. They are quite diurnal in their habits, feeding in the morning and evening, in this respect resembling the Gazelles, to which they are unquestionably closely allied. When we were in the Samhar country in July and August, the Oryx drank apparently every day, always coming to the water about one or two o’clock. It is probable that they drink less regularly in cold weather. “The appearance of a herd of Oryx is very imposing. They are some of the most elegant and symmetrical of animals, their motions being those of a wild horse rather than of an Antelope. Their favourite pace appears to be either a steady quick walk or a trot; they rarely break into a gallop unless greatly alarmed. When frightened, they dash off, sometimes snorting and putting their heads down as if charging, raising their long tails, and looking very formidable. They are wary animals, though far less so than some other Antelopes. “Like the Gazelles and true Antelopes, all equally inhabitants of deserts and open plains, the Oryx has a pointed foot, each of the divisions being rudely triangular. Its tracks may consequently be instantly distinguished from those of cattle or of any of the bovine Antelopes. So far as my acquaintance with the family goes, most of the forest and bush-hunting Antelopes—Koodoo, Nylgai, _Tetraceros_—have their feet formed like those of the _Cervidæ_, with rounded hoofs, whilst the Antelopes of the plain, and especially desert forms, have pointed hoofs.” Heuglin met with this Antelope further south on the Danakil coast of the Red Sea, and also in Northern Somaliland, where he states that it resorts to the more open sandy districts beset with low bushes (_Salvadora_), occasionally retreating into the lower hills. But in Somaliland we have excellent accounts of its habits and distribution from modern observers—of whom we will first quote Captain Swayne, the leading authority on the game-animals of that country. Writing of the Antelopes in his ‘Seventeen Trips through Somaliland,’ Col. Swayne sums up his great experience of the Beisa as follows:— “The Oryx of Somaliland is a very stoutly-built, bovine Antelope, standing as high as a donkey, and inhabits open stony ground, or barren hills, or open grass plains. It is fairly common and very widely distributed over the Somali country, and it may be found in all kinds of country except in the thick jungle with aloe undergrowth (which is so much liked by the Lesser Koodoo), and the cedar-forests on the higher ranges. The best Oryx ground is in the Haud and in Ogádén.