Bushbuck or Decula Antelope (Tragelaphus decula).
Length of horns, 16 inches.
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.