“Hartebeests are the favourite food of Lions, and once, when out with my brother, I found a troop of three Lions sitting out on the open plains, ten miles from the nearest bush. They had evidently been out all night among the herds, and on their becoming gorged, the rising sun had found them disinclined to move.
Fig. 3.
Skull of Bubalis swaynei.
(P. Z. S. 1892, p. 99.)
“Hartebeest horns vary greatly in shape and size. There are short massive horns and long pointed ones, and all the gradations between. Some curve forward, with the points thrown back; others curve outwards in the same plane as the forehead, the points turning upwards”[4].
Our coloured figure of this Antelope (Plate II.) has been drawn by Mr. Smit from the mounted specimen in the British Museum, obtained by Captain Swayne on the Haud plateau of Somaliland.
The woodcut (fig. 3, p. 24) gives a front view of the first skull and horns received from Captain Swayne, upon which Sclater based the species. This specimen is now likewise in the National Collection.
May, 1894.
THE BOOK OF ANTELOPES. PL. III.