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Show 1892.] ANTELOPES OF NORTHERN SOMALILAND. 303 This is quite the most beautiful of all the Somali Antelopes, and the skin is more brilliantly marked and the body more graceful than in the Great Kudu. The Lesser Kudu is found in thick jungles of the larger kind of thorn tree, especially where there is an undergrowth of the " Hig " or pointed aloe, which is of a light green colour and grows four feet high. This Antelope may also be found hiding in dense thickets of tamarisk in the river-beds. It is never found in the open grass plains, and I have never seen one in the cedar-forests on the top of Golis. The favourite haunt, of the Lesser Kudu used to be along the foot of this range, but they are seldom seen there now. The Lesser Kudu likes to be near water if possible, and living, as it does, in thick bush, its ears are wonderfully well developed. It has strong hindquarters, and is a great jumper, the white bushy tail flashing over the aloe clumps as it goes away in great bounds. Lesser Kudus 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 on the farther side. The best way to get a specimen is to follow the new tracks of a buck, the shooter advancing parallel with the tracker, but some 50 yards to one flank and in advance ; a snap shot may then be obtained as the Kudu bounds out of the farther side of the thicket, first giving the warning rustle. One may be months in the country before getting a really good specimen. Lesser Kudus go in small herds of about the same number as the Great Kudus. Old bucks are nearly black, and the horns become smooth by rubbing against trees. The average length of a good buck Lesser Kudu's horns is about 25 inches from base to tip. The longest I have shot or seen was between 27 and 28 inches in a straight line. The horns are very sharp. I have never seen a Lesser Kudu charge anybody. 4. THE SOMALI HARTEBEESTE (Bubalis swaynei)1. Sig. South of the highest ranges, and at a distance of about 100 miles from the coast, are open plains some four or five thousand feet above sea-level, alternating with broken ground covered with thorn-jungle, with an undergrowth of aloes growing sometimes to a height of six feet. This elevated country, called the " Haud," is waterless for three months, from January to March ; it was crossed by Mr. James's party in 1884, when their camels were thirteen days without water. Much of the Haud is bush-covered wilderness or open semi-desert, but some of the higher plains are, at the proper season, in early summer, covered, far as the eye can reach, with a beautiful carpet of green grass, like English pasture-land. At this time of the year pools of water may be found, as the rainfall is abundant. This kind of open grass country is called the " Ban." Not a bush 1 Sclater, above, p. 98, pi. v. |
