Hab. Southern and Eastern Africa, from Bechuanaland to Southern Kordofan.
The first account of the Pallah seems to have appeared in one of the early numbers of a work called Daniell’s ‘Illustrations of African Animated Nature and Scenery,’ published in London in 1812. The author of the letterpress, however, did not give it a scientific name, believing that it might be the “Kob” of Buffon, or an allied species. At about the same date Prof. Lichtenstein, who had met with this animal during his journeyings in Southern Africa from 1803 to 1806, published a description and figure of it in his ‘Reise nach südlichen Afrika’ under the name Antilope melampus. This description, with additional particulars, was repeated in the same author’s classical monograph of the genus Antilope, published in 1814, and his name, taken from the black tufts of short hair at the back of the hind legs just above the foot (which are clearly shown in our figures), has been employed, almost universally, for this species by subsequent writers. Lichtenstein met with his specimens near Klip Fontein in Namaqualand, where it was found to occur in small herds of five or six individuals. In 1812 the celebrated African traveller Burchell likewise met with the Pallah in Bechuanaland, and secured the first specimens which arrived at the British Museum.
Little more was added to our knowledge of this beautiful Antelope until the publication of Harris’s ‘Portraits of the Game and Wild Animals of Southern Africa’ in 1840. Harris devotes his fifteenth plate mainly to the illustration of the “rare and graceful Pallah,” which he states “first gladdens the sight of the traveller in Southern Africa upon the elevated districts north of Latakoo.” Here in the wooded slopes and valleys that environ the mountain-ranges of Kurrichane and Cashan it was met with in families of from twelve to twenty individuals of both sexes.
Harris, with all his experience, could recall to his memory “few objects more picturesque than the graceful figures of a wandering herd of these Antelopes dancing and bounding through the thousand stems of the acacia-groves in all the poetry of motion.” To these wooded districts Harris considered the Pallah to be restricted, not a single specimen having been observed in the open country. The flesh of the Pallah he characterizes as “tender and palatable,” although “rather dry,” like that of most Antelopes.
In these days, however, as we are informed by Messrs. Nicolls and Eglington, it is only on rare occasions that the Pallah is met with in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, and its present distribution is described by them as follows:—“A few herds still linger in the Transvaal along the Crocodile River. Almost exterminated in the regions through which the north-west tributaries of that river flow, it is only when the Zambesi is reached that the Palla is again to be frequently met with in any number. On the Chobe River it is still fairly common, being unknown on the Botletle, but it is only after passing the shores of Lake ’Ngami, and reaching the densely wooded banks of the Tonke, that the species again makes its appearance in a westerly direction. In those parts of Mashonaland and Matabeleland where it is not subject to continual persecution it is still fairly numerous. The Palla is highly gregarious, and frequents the thick, forest-clad banks of rivers, from which it never strays, except after periods of heavy rains, and then only when the pans and vleys (which are always dry during the greater portion of the year) are for a time filled with water. In remote parts, not very much frequented by man, the herds often exceed a hundred in number. Where not continually disturbed, this Antelope, so elegant and graceful of motion, is not by any means shy when approached, generally running but a short distance, and then standing and looking back again, a habit which easily permits of its being stalked.”
In the Transvaal, Mr. Barber kindly informs us, the Pallah was plentiful in the Waterburg and Lydenburg districts up to 1880. Now, however, it has been driven away many miles east, into the valleys that intersect the Lebombo range.
On the north-west of the Cape Colony the Pallah, as we shall see presently, is represented by a nearly allied, though probably distinct, form. But on the eastern side of Africa the Pallah has a wide range, and extends north certainly into British East Africa, and probably still farther into Kordofan. We will endeavour to trace its range throughout this wide area.
Mr. Selous found the Pallah on the tributaries of the Limpopo, and thence northwards on the banks of every river and stream which he has explored in Matabeleland and Mashonaland. The Impalas of the Limpopo he considers to be larger than those of the Chobe.
Peters records the Pallah as met with in the mountainous parts of the Portuguese province of Mozambique, near Tette, Chidima, and Sena, and gives its native names as here ‘Psuara’ or ‘Suara.’ Passing into British Central Africa we find this Antelope recorded by Mr. Crawshay as not common anywhere in Nyasaland, but where met with, as a rule, found in even larger numbers than the Waterbuck. Mr. Crawshay has seen it in companies of one hundred or more, and gives a number of localities around Lake Nyasa in which he has come across herds of it. No Antelope, Mr. Crawshay tells us, can compare with the Pallah in fleetness of foot, and certainly “no other can display such wonderful leaping powers. They go off like the proverbial arrow from the bow, and with most beautiful gliding bounds, cover the ground without apparently the least effort.” In Northern Nyasaland, Mr. J. B. Yule tells us, the Pallah is found only along the stony ridges between Deep Bay and Karonga.
In the highlands of Zomba and the adjacent districts of Nyasaland a local race of the Common Pallah is found, distinguished by its slenderer skull and much shorter horns; but as regards the colour of its fur it is precisely similar to the South-African form. Thomas was at one time of opinion that this highland form should constitute a separate subspecies, and proposed to name it after its discoverer, Sir Harry Johnston, who has done so much in investigating the fauna of British Central Africa, Æpyceros melampus johnstoni. Thomas, however, since the examination of further specimens is not disposed to insist upon the necessity of recognizing this subspecies as distinct.