EAST AFRICAN ORIBI
The East African Oribi (also known to the Swahilis as ‘Taya’) I have found more plentiful on the mainland near Lamu than anywhere else. Sir Robert Harvey and Mr. Hunter, in October and November 1888, also found it in fair numbers up the Tana river. I have never seen it myself south of the Sabaki, though doubtless it is to be met in suitable places. At Merereni where the country seems admirably suited to its habits, although I was shooting there for some time in 1885 and 1886, I never saw one, though some fifteen miles further south, near Mambrui, I observed its spoor. This confirmed me in my theory that the oribi is very partial to the vicinity of cultivated tracts, and I do not remember having seen one in an uninhabited district. At Taka, a small village on the mainland opposite Patta island, I saw great numbers in 1885.
In the vicinity of this village there was a great deal of land which at one time had been under cultivation, but was then lying fallow and covered with coarse dry grass, about two feet high. This afforded excellent covert, and, as the colour of these little antelopes closely resembles that of dry grass, it was very difficult to see them. Except in one way, stalking them was quite hopeless. I found that the only plan to get them was to walk them up with one or two beaters on each side of me, and shoot them with a gun loaded with S.S.G. shot. They lie so close that they will let the sportsman get within ten or fifteen yards of them before they will move, but they rarely give him a chance of a shot under forty to fifty yards. When they first get up it is only possible to follow their movements by the waving of the grass. It is necessary, however, always to be prepared for a snap-shot, as after going some twenty to thirty yards they will bound up into the air, offering a capital chance, which may be the only one, as they will be out of range before they again appear in a like manner. This bounding into the air is, I believe, to enable them to see where they are going to, and it is a curious fact that when they alight they invariably do so on their hind legs, not unlike a kangaroo.
An oribi, even when only slightly wounded, will, as a rule, go a very short distance before lying down, and the sportsman should, therefore, be careful to follow up all those that he thinks he may have touched.