Gazella granti, Brooke, P. Z. S. 1872, p. 601, pl. xli.; id. P. Z. S. 1873, p. 550; Scl. P. Z. S. 1875, p. 527, pl. lix. (Viv. Soc. Zool.); Brooke, P. Z. S. 1878, p. 723 (figs., head); Scl. List An. Z. S. (8) p. 142 (1883); Pagenst. JB. Mus. Hamb. ii. p. 38 (1884); Johnston, Kilimanjaro Exp. p. 394 (1886); Hunter, in Willoughby, E. Africa, p. 289 (1889); Flow. & Lyd. Mamm. p. 342, fig. 2 (head) (1891); Ward, Horn Meas. (1) p. 104 (1892), (2) p. 148 (1896); True, P. U. S. Nat. Mus. xv. p. 473 (1892); Lyd. Horns and Hoofs, p. 236 (1893); Lugard, E. Afr. i. p. 534 (1893); Jackson, in Badm. Big Game Shooting, i. p. 298 (1894); id. P. Z. S. 1897, p. 453; Matsch. Säug. Deutsch-Ost-Afr. p. 131 (1895); Donaldson Smith, P. Z. S. 1895, p. 868; A. Neumann, Elephant-Hunting in E. Africa, pp. 9, 10 (figs., horns, ♂ ♀) (1898).
Vernacular Names:—Swara (Jackson) and Njéra (Stuhlmann) in Swahili.
Size large; height at withers about 34 inches. Fur close and short. General colour fawn, rather variable in tone. Lateral bands, both light and dark, usually very indistinct, often scarcely perceptible; but, on the other hand, occasionally well developed, especially in young animals. Central facial band richer fawn, approaching rufous; a brownish spot present on the muzzle. Light facial streaks white, sharply defined, running up over the eyes to the horns. Below these the dark facial bands are almost imperceptible, scarcely or not at all darker than the fawn-coloured cheeks and neck. Rump with the white of the hams very broad, extended upwards, and uniting across the base of the tail, so that the latter is quite separated from the dark body-colour; laterally the white penetrates angularly into the body-colour, overhanging the top of the pygal band, which is generally well-defined. Outer sides of limbs fawn, without blacker markings. Knee-brushes present, dark fawn. Tail above white for its basal half; black and crested terminally.
Skull stout and heavy, nasal opening broad. In that of an adult male the basal length is 9·75 inches, greatest breadth 4·4, muzzle to orbit 5·3.
Horns very long, longer and more powerful than in any other Gazelle; evenly but slightly curved backwards below, and gently recurved forwards terminally; sometimes but slightly divergent, but more often, especially in specimens from Kilimanjaro, they spread widely above, approaching each other again at their tips. Their section at base is a long oval, very different from the nearly circular section found in G. soemmerringi.
Female. Similar to the male, but the horns slender, nearly circular in section, more strongly ridged than in the females of most Gazelles; about two-thirds in length of those of the male.
Hab. Eastern Africa, from the district of Lake Rudolph, southwards to Ugogo.
Grant’s Gazelle, which has been appropriately named after one of its discoverers, is pre-eminent, even in this ornamental genus, for its size and elegance, and is, in fact, generally allowed to be one of the most beautiful species of the whole group of Antelopes. Speke and Grant left Zanzibar on the well-known expedition during which the efflux of the Nile from Lake Victoria was discovered, in September 1860. Starting from Bagamoyo on the opposite coast, and passing through Usagara, they arrived about two months later in Ugogo, then under the rule of a native chief called Magomba. It was in December 1860 during their stay at this place, where they were long detained by the drunken chief and his wazir, that Speke first met with the present Antelope. In the ‘Journal’ of his travels Speke tells us that while kept waiting to arrange the amount of his “hongo” he took the time out in the jungles very profitably, “killing a fine buck and doe Antelope of an unknown species.” “These animals,” he continues, “are of much about the same size and shape as the common Indian Antelope, and like them roam about in large herds, the most marked difference between the two being in the shape of their horns, and in their colour, in which in both sexes the Ugogo Antelopes rather resemble the Gazella picticaudata of Tibet, except that the former have dark markings on the face.”
Fig. 76.