Page:Lake Ngami.djvu/441

sessed, and which would, in some degree, have enabled me to supply this deficiency, were left behind in Africa. Through the kindness of Colonel Steele, an opportunity has been afforded me of inspecting one or two heads of the nakong, as also a caross (brought from the Lake Ngami by Mr. Oswell) made out of pieces of the skins of this animal. But they are all so imperfect that to attempt any thing like a scientific description would be ineffectual; the more so, perhaps, as I only once had an opportunity of viewing a pair of nakongs, and that was at a distance. Suffice it, therefore, to say, that the general color of the animal is a subdued brown, darkest on the back, and on the front of head and legs. Beneath it is of a lighter hue—almost ash-colored. On each side of the rump, as also on the inside of the legs, if I remember rightly, there is a whitish line or patch. The hair of the skin, which is much used by the natives for carosses, is long and coarse. The horns are black, very like those of the koodoo, and, in the adult animal, would appear to attain to an equal, if not larger size. Before they are much developed there is scarce-

the tragelaphus eurycerus—the broad-horned antelope—of which specimens of horns and heads have been brought from the Bight of Biafra, on the west coast of Africa. In the "Proceedings of the Zoological Society," No. 250, p. 47, the following details appear:


"Head, pale brown. Broad band before the eyes, and two large spots on cheeks; chin and front of upper lip white. Horns elongate, thick, scarcely bent forward at the tip. Throat with long black hairs."


Again, from a head in Mr. Warwick's collection:


"The horns are very similar to those of t. angasii but the head is considerably larger, nearly as large as that of the koodoo, and the horns are thicker and larger; they are twenty-seven inches long in a straight line from base to tip, and nine inches in circumference at the base. The hair of the head is also paler and more uniformly colored, and with very large white spots on the cheek, much larger than those of the koodoo or of t. angasii. The throat has a distinct mane of blackish rigid hairs. The muffle is very like that of t. angasii, and larger than that of the koodoo. The skull is imperfect; it has no appearance of any suborbital pit or slit."