Unfortunately, the specimen from which this photograph was taken had lost its splendid spiral horns.
The Inyala is another bush-loving antelope closely allied to the bushbucks. In this species the general colour of the adult male is a deep dark grey, that of the female and young male bright yellow-red, and both sexes are beautifully striped with narrow white bands on the body and haunches. In the male long dark hair hangs from the throat, chest, and each side of the belly, and fringes the front of the thigh almost to the hock, and the back of it up to the root of the tail. The ears are large and rounded; and the horns, which are only present in the male, attain a length of about 2 feet in a straight line, and 30 inches along their spiral curve. The standing height at the shoulder of males of this species is about 42 inches.
This most beautiful antelope has a very restricted range, being only found in a narrow belt of coastland extending from St. Lucia Bay to the Sabi River, in South-east Africa, and in a still smaller area in the neighbourhood of the Upper Shiri River, in British Central Africa.
Before the acquisition of firearms by the natives in South-east Africa, the inyala was very plentiful in Northern Zululand and Amatongaland, and was then to be met with in herds of from ten to twenty individuals; whilst the males, which at certain seasons of the year separated from the females, were in the habit of consorting together in bands of from five to eight. Constant persecution by the natives in Amatongaland and the countries farther north very much reduced the numbers of inyalas in those districts a long time ago; but in Zululand, where this animal has been strictly protected by the British authorities for the last twenty years, it was still plentiful up to 1896, when the rinderpest swept over the country, and committed such sad ravages amongst all the tragelaphine antelopes that it is to be feared the inyala can now no longer be found anywhere in any considerable numbers. Where I met with these antelopes some years ago, in the country to the south of Delagoa Bay, I found them living either alone or in pairs like bushbucks. They frequented dense thickets in the immediate neighbourhood of a river or lagoon, and I never saw one in anything like open country or far away from water. Their tracks showed me that at night they were accustomed to feed in open spaces in the bush, but they always retired to the jungle again at daylight, as they had become very wary and cunning through constant persecution at the hands of the natives.
Photo by York & Son, Notting Hill.
NORTHERN GIRAFFE.
Two distinct types of Giraffe exist: the northern form, which has a large third horn, may be described as a chocolate-coloured animal marked with a network of fine buff lines; the southern form, in which the third horn is small, is fawn coloured with irregular brown blotches.
Closely allied to the bush-antelopes of the present group are the swamp-haunting Sitatungas. Three species of these have been described,—one from East Africa, named after Captain Speke; another from tropical West Africa; and a third from Lake Ngami and the Chobi River, named after the present writer.
