Passing to the north of the Zambesi we find Mr. Crawshay recording the Waterbuck as by far the commonest of the Antelopes which go in herds in Nyasaland; all over the Protectorate, he says, this Antelope is plentiful both on the east and west coast of the Lake and on the plains of the Shiré River. Mr. Crawshay adds the following particulars as to its habits in Nyasaland:—“Waterbuck are always found in greatest numbers on large swampy plains overgrown with coarse grass, tall reeds, and papyrus, where in the wet season it is almost impossible to get at them. Unlike other Antelopes, except the Reedbuck, they do not appear to leave the lowlands in the rains, but keep to the plains all the year round; apparently they revel in almost impassable swamps, where only Elephants, Buffaloes, and Reedbucks care to stay, and I have occasionally followed them in mud and water almost waist-deep. In such places one has to undergo cruel torture from reed-cuts and mosquitoes, the latter of the fiercest type and even in broad noonday most vicious. Nature has provided the Waterbuck with a tougher hide and coarser hair than any other of its kind; but even these are not proof against the rank tall ‘mabandi’ grass and spear-like ‘matele’ reeds, and I have noticed that the legs of some of those that I have killed have suffered considerably, the skin on the fetlocks and pasterns being cut clean through.”
Proceeding northwards to German East Africa we find Cobus ellipsiprymnus included in Matschie’s volume on the Mammals of that colony. Herr Neumann has transmitted specimens to Berlin from Tanga, and Herr von Höhnel is given as an authority for its occurrence on the Pangani. Speke also met with it in Uzaramo, where it was numerous in the jungles along the Kingani River. In British East Africa, as we are told by Mr. Jackson, the Waterbuck is common everywhere south of Lake Baringo near fresh water, and is also found on many of the saltwater creeks on the coast. It is particularly plentiful on the banks of the Tana River, and in the Kilimanjaro district, where Sir John Willoughby and his party (see ‘East Africa and its Big Game’) and Dr. Abbott also met with it. “Like most bush-loving Antelopes,” Mr. Jackson says, “it is fairly easy to stalk, but is a very tough beast, and takes a good deal of killing, if not hit in the right place. Its flesh, though much relished by the natives, is coarse and rank—indeed that of an old bull is almost uneatable.” Mr. Gedge, who was at one time Mr. Jackson’s companion in East Africa, writes to us that on one occasion in Buddu, a province of Uganda, he fell in with, and shot, a solitary buck of this species, of a light, almost fawn-colour, and adds that their colour varies from a light brown to an almost dark slate in different localities. He considers it one of the commonest Antelopes in British East Africa. In Somaliland the Waterbuck was found on the Webbe Shabeleh by Capt. Swayne and Col. Arthur Paget in the spring of 1894. In his excellent volume on his Somali journeys Captain Swayne tells us that he found it very plentiful all along the banks of the river as far as he followed the stream. “They lie up in the dense forest which clothes both banks along the water’s edge, and go out to feed in herds on the open grass-flats outside the belts of forest.”
Whether the Waterbuck of the White Nile, referred by Gray and Heuglin to Cobus ellipsiprymnus, is of this species or belongs to C. defassa, is perhaps a little doubtful. We should be inclined to think that the latter reference is more likely to be correct.
In European menageries the Waterbuck is not usually to be met with, though there have been occasional specimens in some of the gardens in Holland and Germany. Sclater saw a pair at Amsterdam in June last. The Zoological Society of London received their first specimen of this Antelope (a male) in June 1890, and a female in May 1891. Both of these animals were obtained in British East Africa, and were presented to the Society by Mr. G. S. Mackenzie, F.Z.S. In 1893 the pair bred and a young female was born in the Menagerie on the 4th May, furnishing, so far as is known, the first instance of this animal having reproduced in captivity. The mother and young were figured by Smit in the Society’s ‘Proceedings’ for 1893, and the figures are repeated in our Plate XXXII., where a head of the male of the same pair is also introduced in the background.
In the British Museum will be found a fine mounted pair of this Antelope from Mashonaland (Selous), and a good series of skulls from various localities, amongst which are examples from Nyasaland (Sir H. H. Johnston) and from the banks of the Webbe in Somaliland (Swayne).
August, 1896.
THE BOOK OF ANTELOPES, PL. XXXIII.
J. Smit del. & lith.
Hanhart imp.