For many years the black rhinoceros has been known to exist in the interior of Somáliland; and going farther in every year, I have constantly been expecting to come into its ground.

The first Somáli rhinoceroses were shot by my brother and myself in our Abyssinian border trip in August 1892, and since then only a few have been bagged by Europeans. They come far north of the range of the zebras, sometimes wandering as far towards the coast as the open grass plains of Toyo, a hundred miles south of Berbera, where they hide in the patches of durr grass. They are common in the southern parts of the Haud; I never found any signs of them during many expeditions in the Habr Awal, Esa, and Gadabursi countries. They are most common in the valleys of the Tug Jerer and Tug Fáfan, and thence southward as far as the Webbe; and they are also plentiful beyond the Webbe in Gállaland. Rhinoceroses are said to exist to the south-east of Berbera, but in our trip to the Dolbahanta country we never saw any traces of them.

We found these to be the most stupid game animals we have encountered, and easily approached if the wind was right. They were not very prone to charge, and in their blind, headlong rush seemed to see nothing, so that by stepping to one side and standing perfectly still a man would probably be safe. The transparent and thorny nature of the billeil bush, which is always their last sanctuary, renders a man rather helpless, and if seen and charged, and unable to find elbow-room owing to the walls of impenetrable thorns, he would probably be killed. Rhinoceros-shooting is very exciting, but it is chiefly the fearful nature of the jungle which makes it so. I have never seen more than three of these brutes together. The ground they usually prefer is a network of very stony, broken hills, covered with galól or billeil jungle, and having some river-bed not too many miles distant, where they can go at night to drink and bathe. They travel considerable distances to the river, and wander all night up and down the channel looking for a convenient pool, and making a maze of tracks in the soft sand. The Abbasgúl, Malingúr, and Rer Amáden tribes eat their flesh when hungry, and I found it very good, and once lived for a week on very little else.

We could usually cut from fifteen to thirty fighting shields from each rhinoceros, three-quarters of an inch thick and from fifteen to eighteen inches in diameter, worth about a dollar apiece at the coast. Everywhere in Central Ogádén the caravan tracks are furrowed in grooves a yard or more long and six inches deep, which look like the work of a plough. This is done by the rhinoceros as he walks along.

A good pair of bull’s horns measures nineteen inches for the front and five inches for the back one.

Antelopes[53]—The Oryx (Oryx beisa)

Native name, Beit

The oryx 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 Somáli country, and it may be found in all kinds of country except 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.

The oryx feeds chiefly on grass, and is often found very far from water. It has keen sight, and probably protects itself more by this than by its sense of hearing or scent. Oryx are found in herds of from half a dozen to thirty or forty, chiefly composed of cows. The only antelopes which go in very large herds in Northern Somáliland are the hartebeest and Sœmmering’s gazelle. Bull oryx are found wandering singly all over the country, and possibly these make up in number for the preponderance of cows in the herds.

Sometimes two or three cows with growing calves will be found together, making up a small herd of half a dozen. It is nearly impossible to distinguish which are the bulls in a herd, and they are so few in proportion to the cows that it is best, if shooting for sport alone, not to fire at herd animals at all. The bull is slightly thicker in the neck and higher in the withers than the cow; and the horns, though an inch or two shorter in the bull, are more massive, especially about the base, and more symmetrical, whilst the cow’s horns are frequently bent and of unequal length. The oryx is often revengeful when wounded and brought to bay; twice I have seen a wounded one make a determined charge into a mob of Somális armed with spears.

The Midgáns, who are armed with bows and poisoned arrows, hunt the oryx with packs of savage yellow pariah dogs; the thick skin round the withers of a bull is made by them into a white gáshan or fighting shield. The method of hunting, as carried out by the Midgáns in the Bulhár Plain, is as follows: Three or four of them, with about fifteen dogs, go out just before dawn, and walk along silently through the scattered thorn-trees till fresh tracks are found, and these are followed till the game is sighted. By throwing stones, whistling, and other signs which the dogs understand, they are shown the herd, and settle down to their work. The dogs run mute, the men following at a crouching trot, which in a Somáli is untiring; and this lasts until the dogs open in chorus, having brought the game to bay. The oryx make repeated charges at the dogs, which they often wound or kill. If the latter can avoid the sharp horns of the mother, they fasten on to a calf, and sometimes the whole herd will charge to the rescue. The Midgáns run up silently under cover of the bushes and let off a flight of poisoned arrows into the herd, which, seeing the human enemy, takes to flight. Frequently an animal wounded by a poisoned arrow takes a line of its own, and is in due time carefully followed up and found dead, or it may be pulled down in its weak state by the dogs.

It was many years ago, while wandering with my hunter, Ali Hirsi, in the Bulhár Plain, that I first saw the trophies of a bull oryx, and at once resolved that I would hunt nothing else till I had brought down a specimen of this beautiful antelope. As we were walking through a thick part of the bush we suddenly came upon a group of four Midgáns engaged in lighting a fire under a large gudá thorn-tree. Resting against the trunk was the head of a freshly-killed oryx bull, with a grand pair of horns, starting in continuation with the forehead and sweeping back in a slight curve to a length of thirty-four inches. On the branches strips of oryx meat were hanging, and on the ground lay the rest of the carcase and the skin, which a man was cleaning with a knife, where it lay in a pool of frothy blood. Round the tree nine pariah dogs lay about; they were gnawing offal, and got up lazily, as I approached, to show their teeth and growl at me, till kicked into silence by one of the Midgáns. The group was a very striking one, and although I have since, while feeding my followers in the interior, shot large numbers of oryx, none have appeared to me so fine as this first one which I had not the good fortune to shoot. I haggled with the Midgáns for the head and got it for two dollars, and also engaged them with their dogs to come hunting with me on the first day on which I should be able to get away from Bulhár.

At midnight, a week later, I rode out on a camel, accompanied by Ali Hirsi, the four Midgáns, and nine dogs. We slept for a few hours at a Midgán karia out on the plain, and at dawn struck due south into the heart of the bush. As it became hot, after having seen nothing but Walleri and small gazelles all the morning, we sat down to rest, sending a boy, one of the Midgáns, up a thorn-tree to watch. The dogs lay round us panting, with their tongues hanging out, and all the men were soon asleep under the shade, except my Midgán sentry, who was softly intoning his Mahomedan prayers as he sat perched on the tree. Suddenly he stopped them with a jerk, slipped down the trunk of the tree, and came running to me snapping his fingers. We all got up, and the Midgáns, by whistling and throwing pebbles, put the dogs on to the broad path of a large herd of oryx. Off we went, and after running for five minutes as fast as our legs could carry us, the dogs being well out of sight, we heard a clamour in the distance; and crouching low as we ran, came into a glade where we found the herd bunched together round a thicket, keeping the dogs back, the oryx charging repeatedly and the dogs dodging nimbly, trying to cut out the young calves. Directly the oryx caught sight of us they scattered like a bursting shell. I ran hard to cut off some of them, jumping over low mimósas and stepping on large thorns, and the Midgáns sent a flight of poisoned arrows whizzing past me at the flying herd. The Midgáns, I knew, wanted meat, so I dropped a large cow with the .500 Express as she galloped past at forty yards, rolling her over in her tracks. The Midgáns rushing up, breathed a short prayer, slashed her throat open, and then stood clear from the quivering body, while all the dogs fastened on to a calf, which was soon lying beside the cow with its head cut off; and after half an hour spent in lighting a fire and roasting some oryx meat, we loaded up the rest and made for Bulhár.

I have had several trips with these Bulhár Midgáns in search of oryx. Their camping arrangements are very primitive, and many a time have I helped them to light a fire by rubbing two sticks together. Special wood had to be chosen, and it generally took us from ten to twenty minutes to get a light.

The skin on the withers of a bull oryx is much thicker than the rest of the skin, being about three-quarters of an inch thick. The average length of horns in a good bull is thirty-two inches, in a cow thirty-four inches. Young oryx, when caught and confined in an enclosure, will sometimes show their stubborn, wild nature by charging the bars, head down, and so killing themselves; a case of this kind once occurred in Berbera. The flesh of a calf oryx is, in my opinion, more delicious than that of any other antelope, and lions are particularly fond of it. These calves, when young, are very like those of English cattle in appearance, but smaller, with stumpy, straight horns a few inches long. They give out a peculiar half-bleat, half-bellow, when attacked by dogs or wounded. We fell in with young calves about the middle of August in two successive years. Oryx sometimes strike sideways with their horns as we use a stick. When very angry they lower them till nearly parallel with the ground, and make a dash forward for a few yards with surprising swiftness. Oryx are often seen in company with hartebeests and Plateau gazelles. Once I saw a small herd with some of these latter, and with the mixed herd were two ostriches.

The Koodoo (Strepsiceros Koodoo)

Native name, Gódir or Goriáleh Gódir (male); Adér-yu (female); Adér-yu (collective name for herd animals of both sexes and all ages)

Koodoos are found in mountainous or very broken ground where there is plenty of bush and good grass and water. The best koodoo grounds in Somáliland are Gólis Range and the Gadabursi Hills. The large koodoos scarcely exist in the parts of Ogádén which I have visited. Either they never existed there, or, as my followers declared, they died of the great epidemic of cattle disease four or five years ago. Ogádén Somális constantly offer to show koodoo to a sportsman, but they appear to mean the lesser koodoo; and this they call Gódir, knowing apparently of only the one kind. The Ishák tribes, on the other hand, have names for both.

Sometimes a solitary old bull will make his midday lair close to water, in some quiet part of the hills. They are very retiring, and live in small families, two bulls and seven cows being the largest number I have noticed together. They prefer the steepest mountains, but wander about at night in search of grass in broken ground in the neighbouring plains. An old male with a heavy pair of horns seems to avoid thick jungle, where they may catch in the branches, and likes to spend the heat of the day under the shadow of some great rock on the mountain side, where he can get a good view around. His eyes, nose, and ears appear to be equally on the alert, and he is often very cunning. Although such a heavy animal, he is a good climber and is hard to stalk, but, once successfully approached, the steep nature of the ground generally yields him up an easy victim to the rifle. The alarm-note of the female koodoo is a loud, startling bark, which echoes far into the surrounding hills, and is similar to that of the Indian sambar hind.[54] The bark is accompanied by an impatient pawing of the ground with the hoofs.

The habits of the greater and lesser koodoo exactly correspond respectively to those of the sambar and spotted deer of Southern India. Great koodoos live in the mountains, and lesser koodoos on the bush-covered slopes at their base. Koodoos are generally timid, but care must be taken when coming suddenly on them, as I once saw an unwounded bull make a very determined charge from some thirty yards’ distance at a solitary man who had been sent to stop the mouth of a gorge. The man jumped to one side and threw his spear, grazing the flank of the beast, which then galloped out into the plain below and escaped. I had a good view of this, and there could be no doubt as to the intention of the beast.

The koodoo is the largest of all the Somáli antelopes, a large bull standing about 13 hands 1 inch, and although an active climber, he is not fast on level ground. A fairly good pair of horns in Somáliland will measure 3 feet from base to tip, and 50 inches round the spiral of each horn. The largest I have ever seen measured 56 inches round the spiral. The koodoo is rare except in the mountains, and is found on the highest ground of Northern Somáliland, inhabiting the top of Wagar Mountain and Gólis Range, which rise to about six thousand eight hundred feet. It has lately become scarce even in these parts. The head is a great prize, and a good pair of horns should be ample reward for a fortnight’s climbing in the hills.

The Lesser Koodoo (Strepsiceros imberbis)

Native name, Gódir or Arreh Gódir (male); Adér-yu (female); Adér-yu (collective)

This is, to my mind, quite the most beautiful of all the Somáli antelopes, and the skin is more brilliantly marked and the body more gracefully shaped than that of the greater koodoo. The lesser koodoo is rather smaller than the oryx.

The lesser koodoo is found in thick jungles of the larger kind of thorn-tree, especially where there is an undergrowth of the hig or slender pointed aloe, which is of a light green colour, and grows from four to six feet high. This antelope may also be found hiding in dense thickets of tamarisk in the river-beds. It is not found in the open grass plains, and I have never seen one in the cedar forests on the top of Gólis. Its favourite haunt used to be along the foot of this range, and I do not think its numbers have been much diminished of late years. By far the best lesser koodoo ground I have ever visited is the thick forest on the Webbe banks, near Imé and Karanleh. These Webbe specimens are different to the ones found under Gólis, as they are smaller, have shorter horns, are still more brilliantly marked, and have hoofs nearly twice as long. The hoofs of a Webbe lesser koodoo are, like those of a Webbe bushbuck, of extraordinary length.

The lesser koodoo likes to be near water, and living as it does among the densest thickets, its ears are wonderfully well developed. It has powerful hind-quarters, and is a strong leaper, the white bushy tail flashing over the aloe clumps as it takes them in great bounds. They are very cunning, and will stand quite still on the farther side of a thicket listening to the advancing trackers, then a slight rustle is heard as they gallop away. The best way to get a specimen is to follow the fresh tracks of a buck, the sportsman advancing in a direction parallel with that of the tracker, but some fifty yards to one flank and in advance; a snap shot may then be got as the koodoo bounds out of the farther side of a thicket, but you may be months in the country before getting a really good buck. They go in herds of about the same number as do the greater koodoos. Old bucks are nearly black, and the horns become smooth by rubbing against trees; and scars of all sorts remain on the neck, being the result of wild rushes through the jungle or fights with other bucks. The average length of a good buck’s horns is about 25 inches from base to tip. The longest I have shot or seen was between 27 and 28 inches in length in a straight line. The horns are very sharp, but I have never seen a lesser koodoo attempt to charge.

The Somáli Hartebeest (Bubalis swaynei)

Native name, Síg

The Síg or hartebeest was described by Dr. Sclater as Bubalis swaynei; his description and notes (P. Z. S., Feb. 1892) were taken from specimens shot and sent home by me. I was not the first to shoot the Síg, but mine were the first specimens submitted to scientific investigation.

South of Gólis Range, and at a distance of about one hundred and twenty miles from the coast, are open plains from four to six thousand feet above sea-level, alternating with broken ground covered with thorn jungle. These patches of ban or prairie are the only kind of country where the hartebeest is to be found. Not a bush is to be seen, and some of these plains are thirty or forty miles in extent.

I first saw the Síg when coming on to ground which had not then been visited by Europeans, and found one of these plains covered with hartebeests, there being perhaps a dozen herds in sight at one time, each containing three or four hundred of these antelopes. Hundreds of bulls were scattered singly on the outskirts and in spaces between the herds, grazing, fighting, or lying down. The scene described was at a distance of over a hundred and twenty miles from Berbera.

The hartebeest bulls are very pugnacious, and two or three couples may be fighting round the same herd at once. Perhaps the easiest way to get a specimen is to send a couple of Midgáns round above the wind to drive them towards you, at the same time lying down in the grass. In this way a shot may be got within a hundred yards, but no one would care to shoot very many hartebeests, except for food. There is no chance of creeping up to hartebeests unless the huge ant-hills, often twenty-five feet high, are conveniently situated.

Often oryx and Sœmmering’s gazelles are seen in company with these great troops of hartebeests, but the oryx are much wilder. The hartebeests are rather tame, and they and the Sœmmering’s gazelles are always the last to move away. Hartebeests have great curiosity, and will frequently rush round a caravan, halting now and then within two hundred yards to gaze. This sight is an extraordinary one, all the antelopes having heavy and powerful fore-quarters, while the hind-quarters are poor and fall away; the coat is glossy like that of a well-groomed horse. In the midday haze of the plains they look something like troops of lions, as the powerful head and neck are of a different shade of chestnut to the rest of the body. The pace of the hartebeest is an ungraceful, lumbering canter, but it is probably the fleetest and most enduring of the Somáli antelopes. The largest herd I have seen must have contained a thousand individuals, packed closely together, and looking like a regiment of cavalry, the whole plain round being dotted with single bulls.

From their living so much in the open plains the hartebeests must subsist entirely on grass, for there is nothing else to eat; and they must be able to exist for several days without water. They are the favourite food of lions, and once, when out with my brother, I found a troop of three lions sitting out on the open plains, ten miles from the nearest bush; they had evidently been out all night among the herds, and on their becoming gorged, the rising sun had found them disinclined to move.

The hartebeest is about as large as a donkey. The horns vary greatly in shape and size; there are the short massive horns and the long pointed ones, and all the variations between. Some curve forward, with the points thrown back; others curve outwards in the same plane with the forehead, the points turning inward. I never heard of hartebeests in the whole of Guban or anywhere in the parts of Ogádén which I have visited; I have seen them on open plains in the Haud and Ogo, and nowhere else.

Waterbuck (Cobus ellipsiprymnus)

Native name, Balanka, among the Adone (Webbe negroes); corrupted to Balango by the Somális

I believe there are no waterbuck to be found in Somáliland except on the banks of the Webbe Shabéleh, and perhaps the Lower Nogal, near the east coast. There are none on the Tug Fáfan, at any of the points where I have crossed it. They are said to be numerous all along the Webbe Ganána (Juba), the course of which lies chiefly through Gállaland.

The first important collections of the waterbuck were, I think, made by Colonel Arthur Paget and myself on two independent but simultaneous expeditions to the Webbe last spring. I found these antelopes very plentiful all along both banks of the river, from Imé down to Burka in the Aulihán tribe, which was as far as I followed the stream. They lie up in the dense forest which clothes both banks of the river for some two hundred yards from the water’s edge; and they go out to feed in the open grass flats outside the belts of forest. They go in small herds of about fifteen individuals, though most of the herds I saw consisted of only four or five, with one old buck.

The habits of the Somáli waterbuck are, I believe, similar to those of the same species in other parts of Africa. They feed chiefly on grass, delight in a mud-bath, and take to the water readily; a wounded buck which I was following in thick forest tried to escape by swimming the Webbe, some ninety yards across, and we shot him as he galloped along the farther bank. The bucks on the Webbe vary much in colour, from brownish gray to nearly black. The white lunate marking over the tail is always present; some heads have the forehead bright rufous brown, and others are nearly black in this part. The flesh is eaten by the negroes of the Webbe, but not by Somális. The horns obtained on the Webbe are small compared to waterbuck horns from more southern Africa; out of some fifteen heads of old bucks collected by me at different times none reached twenty-five inches. The females are hornless. The waterbuck is about the size of a red-deer, and resembles the latter in the shape of the head, though the body stands on shorter and stouter legs.

Bushbuck (Tragelaphus decula)

Native name, Dól

The bushbuck is somewhat larger than a fallow deer, and is common in the dense forest on the Webbe banks; and it is the most wary and difficult to shoot of all the game animals I have ever encountered. I never heard of its existence till my second expedition to the Webbe last autumn. At Karanleh I obtained from the natives several skins and horns of Dól which had been caught by means of disguised pits, with a stake in the bottom of each. These pits are made by the Adone, and are funnel-shaped, about eight feet deep and five in diameter at the top. They are dug in the densest jungle, in the paths most frequented by the bushbuck when going to and returning from the water. Some of these paths are long tunnels three feet high, bored through the masses of vegetation for fifty yards or more, and often I could only get to the river by creeping on all-fours through these tunnels; this may be exciting work when it is considered that many kinds of game, including the lion and rhinoceros, use them.

On my arrival at Karanleh I sent skilled negroes to repair all the pits within a mile or two of my camp, in the hope of getting a specimen. During a month spent on the Webbe banks I shot only one young buck, but I organised three or four drives, in one of which my men shot a buck with their Sniders. On this occasion the buck was in company with one female, which broke back through the line in spite of the firing, and in rather a curious manner, which I have before described. The only way of crossing the line was to jump over the head of one of my men who was standing erect, which she did, her hoofs striking the centre of his forehead and knocking him down. This is probably, as elsewhere in Africa, a plucky little antelope, and its hunting in the dense bush which it inhabits is not altogether free from danger.

The longest horns were a pair which I picked up, measuring about seventeen inches in length. The females are hornless. The young of both sexes are of a distinct reddish brown, getting darker as they grow older, and the natives say the old bucks become nearly black. The hair is generally curiously worn off along the spine. The natives have given me conflicting theories, but I cannot satisfactorily account for it. There are four or five transverse white stripes and white spots, sometimes as many as thirty, on each side, more numerous in the young animals. The necks are scantily covered with short hair, and in the two young bucks we killed were very slender. The flesh is good eating. I am not aware that the bushbuck exists anywhere in Somáliland but in the dense forest close to the banks of the Webbe.

Clarke’s Gazelle (Ammodorcas clarkei)

Native name, Dibatag or Diptag

The Dibatag was first shot by Mr. T. W. H. Clarke in 1891 during his exploring trip to the Dolbahanta and Marehán countries, far to the south-east of Berbera. Just a week after his specimens had been sent to England, I bought in Berbera two pairs of horns with the face skins attached, and sent them to Dr. Sclater, of the Zoological Society, believing them to belong to a new antelope; but by this time Mr. Clarke’s specimens had been examined by Mr. Rowland Ward and handed to Mr. Oldfield Thomas, who described this new species. See Proceedings, Zoological Society, March 1891.

The Dibatag is common enough in some parts, but is very local in its distribution. Since Mr. Clarke first discovered it, a few have been met with and shot by sportsmen in the eastern parts of the Haud waterless plateau.

I have been singularly unfortunate with this antelope, never having been in the country where it is found till I went to the Nogal Valley some three years ago. At that time the Jilal, or dry season, was at its height, and all game was scarce and shy, so I never got a Dibatag till June 1893, when on my return journey from Ogádén across the waterless plateau I made a détour of several days to the east on purpose to shoot one for my collection.

I searched for Dibatag at Tur, a jungle due south of Toyo grass plains, the distance being some eighty miles from Berbera, and was lucky in getting one good buck and picking up two pairs of horns, although I saw a good many, but all were wild and shy. This is their extreme western limit, and they never by any chance, I believe, come so far south as the Gólis Range. Farther east, towards Bur’o, they are more plentiful and less shy.

Dibatag are very difficult to see, their purplish gray colour matching with the high durr grass in the glades where they are found. The glossy coat, shining, reflects the surrounding colours, making it sometimes almost invisible; and at the best of times its slender body is hard to make out. I have often mistaken female Waller’s gazelles for Dibatag, and once shot one of the former in mistake for the latter. The habits and gait are much the same, save that the Dibatag trots off with head held up, and the long tail held erect over the back nearly meeting the head, while Waller’s gazelle trots away with its head down and its short tail screwed round. Like Waller’s gazelle, the Dibatag goes singly or in pairs, or small families up to half a dozen.

As is the case with Waller’s gazelle, the Dibatag is enabled by its long neck and rather long upper lip to reach down branches of the mimósa bushes from a considerable height. The shape of head and way of feeding of both antelopes are giraffe-like, and I have seen both standing on the hind legs, fore-feet planted against the trunk of a tree, when feeding, an illustration of which is given. I have seen Dibatag feeding both on thorn-bushes and on the durr grass. Both Walleri and Clarke’s antelopes can live far from water. The country most suitable for Dibatag is jungle of the khansa or umbrella mimósa, alternating with glades of durr grass, which grows about six feet high. The females are hornless. The Dibatag is a very graceful antelope, standing higher than an Indian blackbuck, but weighing probably a good deal less.

Waller’s Gazelle (Lithocranius walleri)

Native name, Gerenúk

The Gerenúk is the commonest and most widely distributed of the Somáli antelopes except the little Sakáro, which springs like a hare from every thicket.

The long neck of the Gerenúk, large giraffe-like eyes, and long muzzle, are peculiar to it and the Dibatag (Ammodorcas clarkei). The Gerenúk is more of a browser of bushes than a grass-feeder, and I have twice shot it in the act of standing on the hind legs, neck extended, and fore-feet against the trunk of a tree, reaching down the tender shoots, which could not be got in any other way. Thus not only the appearance, but the habits of the Gerenúk are giraffe-like. The skull extends far back behind the ears like that of a camel.

It is found all over the Somáli country in small families, never in large herds, and generally in scattered bush, ravines, and rocky ground. I think it subsists almost entirely on bushes, as it is constantly found in places deserted by oryx and all other antelopes because there was no grass. Perhaps the Gadabursi country is the best ground, but the Gerenúk is almost ubiquitous and need not be specially looked for. I have never seen it in the cedar forests which crown Gólis, nor in the treeless plains which occur in the Haud. It is not necessarily found near water,—in fact, generally on stony ground with a sprinkling of thorn jungle.

The gait of this antelope is peculiar, and when first seen a buck will generally be standing motionless, head well up, looking at the intruder and trusting to its invisibility. Then the head dives under the bushes, and the animal goes off at a long crouching trot, stopping now and again behind some bush to gaze. It seldom gallops, and its pace is never very fast. In the whole shape of the head and neck, with its extended muzzle and slender lower jaw, there is a marked resemblance between the Gerenúk and the Dibatag. The texture of the coat is much alike in both. The horns of immature buck Gerenúk have almost exactly the same shape as those of the Dibatag. The average length of Waller’s gazelle horns is about thirteen inches. The females are hornless; they sometimes lose or desert their young ones, as I have now and then come on fawns living alone in the jungle. The Gerenúk stands a good deal higher than an Indian blackbuck, but would be about the same weight.

Sœmmering’s Gazelle (Gazella sœmmeringi)

Native name, Aoul

Five years ago, when I was staying in the quarters at Bulhár, the Aoul could be seen from the bungalow grazing out on the plain. The Bulhár Maritime Plain used to be full of them, but they have been so persecuted by sportsmen that they have now retired to some distance. The bush in the Bulhár Plain is delightful for sport when not overrun by the Somáli flocks and herds. In the Haga, or summer, Bulhár is nearly empty. The walking under-foot is very thorny, owing to a practice in vogue with Somális of scattering thorny brushwood about the ground across certain paths, to prevent the straying of the animals. Some of the thorns are four inches long, and soon find out a hole in the boot.

The Aoul weighs about the same as the Gerenúk, but has a shorter neck and a more clumsy-looking head, and is altogether a coarser animal. It is a grass-feeder, and lives in the open plains or in scattered bush, and never in thick jungle, and prefers tolerably flat ground. The white hind-quarters can be seen from a great distance, making a herd look like a flock of sheep in the haze of the plains. I have never seen them in the cedar forests on the top of Gólis, but in the hartebeest ground to the south they are common, and may often be seen in very large herds along with the hartebeests, and are very common all over the Haud and Ogádén and near the Webbe.

They are, I think, the most stupid and easy to shoot of all the Somáli antelopes, and their habits are identical with those of the Indian blackbuck, but they are not equal to it in beauty and grace of movement. Aoul often make long and high jumps when going away, presumably to look over the backs of the others; they look something like specimens of the Cape springbuck which I have seen in England. I have never observed them spring vertically to a great height, as the Indian blackbuck does. They are inquisitive like the hartebeests, and will follow a caravan in the open; and if fired at, they make off across the front, stretching themselves out at racing speed, and drawing up in a troop now and then to gaze.

If much meat is required, it is easy in scattered bush for a man on foot to run into a large herd and shoot several. The bucks will often be seen fighting or chasing each other at full speed. Solitary bucks are sometimes found, and I once saw about fifteen young fawns gathered together a mile away from the adult herd. The largest herd I have ever seen in the Bulhár Plain contained about two hundred individuals, but I have seen over a thousand together in the open plains of the Haud.

Aoul can live a long way from water. Near the coast they often come down close to the shore, possibly to lick the salt pebbles. A wounded buck does not hide, but will lie down in the most open spot he can find, and there will generally be a circle of jackals waiting round him. They can sometimes be easily shot at dusk, when they are apt to blunder close to a caravan. The horns vary in shape, and are often malformed or wanting in symmetry, being generally lyrate, the points turning inwards and forwards. The largest pair I have seen measured seventeen inches, following the curve; the average is about fourteen inches.

The Guban or Lowland Gazelle (Gazella pelzelni).

The Ogo or Plateau Gazelle (Gazella spekei).

Native name for either variety, Déro

The Plateau gazelle, which has the ridges of loose skin over the nose well developed, inhabits the elevated country, commencing about thirty-five miles inland. It is found south of Gólis, in Ogo and in the Haud, as well as in Ogo-Gudan, the country near Hargeisa where Guban rises gradually into Ogo.

I have shot large numbers of gazelles for food at various times, and have always noticed that the Plateau variety has a much thicker and longer coat than the other. This is possibly the result of natural selection, as the high plains of Ogo and the Haud, where it lives, are subject to sweeping cold winds, and the nights are very cold indeed. The altitude of these plains inhabited by the Plateau gazelle is from three thousand to over six thousand feet, but doubtless they go much lower towards Ogádén. The great step of Gólis, with its prolongations east and west, which rises some forty miles inland and separates Guban, the low coast country, from Ogo, the high interior country, forms the natural line of demarcation between these two gazelles.

The short-coated, light-coloured Lowland gazelle, which resembles the former in size, is found below in Guban, to the north of Gólis. I have generally observed that the gazelles of the low country carried rather longer horns than those of the Plateau gazelle, which are shorter, thicker, more curved, and better annulated. The habits of both are alike. They go in moderate herds of from three up to about ten, and are fond of stony or sandy undulating ground and ravines, thinly dotted over with mimósas. Both varieties are fond of salt, and do not want water, and it is hard to understand what they can pick up to eat in the wretched ground frequented by them. They generally avoid thick bush, and have curiosity which amounts to impudence, but are wonderfully on the alert and hard to shoot, seeming to know perfectly well the range of a rifle, and presenting a small target.

The Klipspringer (Oreotragus saltator)

Somáli name, Alakud

These small antelopes live in the most rugged mountains, poising themselves on large boulders and leaping from rock to rock. They are neither shy nor hard to shoot. Gólis and Assa Ranges, and the hills near Gebili, are the best ground in which to look for them. Alakud go in twos and threes. The longest horns I saw in Somáliland were about three and a half inches in length. The females are hornless. The coat is very coarse, resembling that of no other Somáli antelope, the hairs being almost like quills, and so loosely planted in the skin that it is difficult to preserve a specimen. The hoofs are also peculiar, being nearly cylindrical, and cup-shaped underneath, no doubt in order, by cushioning the air, to break the fall and to give an extra firm hold on the rocks.

The “Dik-Dik” Antelopes

General native name, Sakáro

These little antelopes weigh less than an English hare, and I think Guyu must be among the smallest of the antelope tribe. In all three the horns are well corrugated at the base, sharply pointed, and from one inch to three inches long. The eyes are enormously large in proportion to the size of the head.

The Gol Ass (i.e. “red belly”) is the ordinary “Dik-Dik,” which is shot all over Guban and Ogo and in parts of the Haud and Ogádén. The Guyu differs from it in being very much smaller, and having the sides of the belly yellowish gray instead of reddish yellow. It appears to be found in the localities frequented by the Gol Ass. In fact both have been shot indiscriminately by sportsmen under the name “Dik-Dik,” which is the term used by Europeans, who often noticed the great variation in the size of adult specimens. My attention was first called to the two native names only at the end of my last expedition, which led to the discovery that they represented distinct varieties.

I came on Gussuli for the first time about a day’s journey south of Seyyid Mahomed’s village in the Malingúr tribe, and found it to exist all over the Rer Amáden country. Its range coincides nearly with that of the rhinoceros, and it is found, like the latter animal, in parts of the Haud, where its ground overlaps with the range of the Gol Ass. The Gussuli is if anything slightly larger than the Gol Ass, and of a dead gray colour, with a white belly. The female appears to be much larger than the male; and it is a pretty safe rule, when trying to shoot the buck of a pair, to aim at the smaller one.

The Gol Ass and Guyu have short muzzles, while that of the Gussuli is very long, resembling the snout of a tapir. The two former antelopes are found in pairs, seldom more than three being seen together. They give a shrill alarm whistle, uttered two or three times in quick succession, and are often a nuisance, being apt to disturb more valuable game. The Gussuli start up three or four at a time, and sometimes the undergrowth seems to be alive with them. These small antelopes are very easily knocked over with a shot gun and No. 4 shot. They give good sport in the evening, when they are liveliest, especially if followed silently and fired at with a rook rifle, for they give plenty of chances when they stand to look back. The female exposes herself most, and is consequently most often shot.