The “Baira” Antelope (Oreotragus megalotis)
Native name, Baira
The Baira antelope, which my brother and I believed to be new, was described by Herr Menges (Zool. Anz. xvii. 1894), and called Oreotragus megalotis. Specimens had been submitted by me to Mr. Oldfield Thomas, and he had pronounced it to be new a few days before Herr Menges brought his specimens forward in Germany for the purposes of description.
I first heard of it near Ali-Maan, in the Gadabursi country, among very rugged hills, in the autumn of 1891, when my brother saw two of them, but failed to get a shot. He described them as reddish antelopes, rather larger than the klipspringer, with small straight horns, bounding away among the rocks in exactly the same manner as the klipspringer.
On my last trip the Somális assured me that I should find them on Wagar Mountain and on Negegr, which is its eastern continuation, lying about forty miles south-south-east of Berbera, and rising to between six and seven thousand feet. They said it was nearly as large as an ordinary Plateau gazelle, but reddish; also that it inhabited ground similar to the klipspringer, but was shy and difficult to shoot. This no doubt accounts for no Englishman having shot one, though my brother heard of them so far back as 1891. I could not shoot one, as I had no time to go again to Wagar myself. On leaving the coast on my last trip I sent men in to look for Baira, offering a reward for a good head and skin of a male and female, and gave instructions to my agents in Berbera and Aden to pay the reward and to send me the specimens. Lately I received the two skins and pairs of horns from Aden, and when I submitted them for scientific investigation in London, it transpired that the antelope was new and had just been described.
Grévy’s Zebra (Equus grévyi)
Somáli name, Fer’o
Grévy’s zebra was, I believe, described by the French from a zoological garden specimen, but first shot in Somáliland by Colonel Paget and myself on our simultaneous expeditions early in 1893. I found them at Durhi, in Central Ogádén, between the Tug Fáfan and the Webbe, and about three hundred miles inland from Berbera, and shot seven specimens, all of which were eaten by myself and my thirty followers; in fact, for many days we had no other food, although this was no hardship, for the meat is better than that of most of the antelopes, and is highly prized by the Rer Amáden and Malingúr tribes.
The zebra was very common in the territory of these two tribes. The country there is covered with scattered bush over its entire surface, and is stony and much broken up by ravines; the general elevation is about two thousand five hundred feet above sea-level. Those which I saw (probably not more than two hundred in all) were met with in small droves of about half a dozen, on low plateaux covered with scattered thorn bush and glades of durr grass, the soil being powdery, and red in colour, with an occasional outcrop of rocks. In this sort of country they are very easy to stalk, and I should never have fired at them for sport alone. I saw none in the open flats of the Webbe Valley, and they never come nearly so far north as the open grass plains of the Haud, Durhi south of the Fáfan being, I think, their northern limit. The young have longer coats and the stripes are rather lighter brown, turning later on to a deep chocolate, which is nearly black in adult animals.
On one occasion, after firing at one of a drove of zebras, I was sorry to find, on going up to it, that it was a female, and that its foal was standing by the body, refusing to run away, though the rest had all gone. We crept up to within ten yards of it, and made an unsuccessful attempt to noose it with a rope weighted by bullets, but it made off after the first try. We must have been quite five minutes standing within ten yards of it in the thick bush, while preparing the noose.