environment, of a uniform light brown colour, except that the spots on the cheeks and the arrow-shaped mark across the nose, present in most tragelaphine antelopes, are still discernible. In the inyala antelope, which inhabits thick jungly tracts of bush along the south-east coast of Africa, the adult male is of a deep dark grey in general body colour, with a few scarcely visible vertical white stripes. The young males and the adult females are, however, of a brilliant light red colour, profusely striped and spotted with white. The young of all bushbucks and of the inyala are reddish in ground colour, striped and spotted with white. The fœtal young of the situtunga found in the marshes of the Chobi are of the colour of a dark moleskin beautifully banded and spotted with pale yellow, and it is, I think, a very remarkable fact that these stripes and spots are identical in position with those found on the adult Chobi bushbuck, which is strong evidence, I think, that both these animals are descended from one ancestral form.
Now the only animal that preys habitually on bushbucks, inyalas, and situtungas is the leopard, and as leopards hunt by night and by scent, I cannot believe that the very different outward appearance of the various races of bushbucks inhabiting different parts of Africa is to be accounted for by the theory of protective coloration. The males and females of the Cape bushbuck and of the inyala antelope are very different one from another in the colour of their coats, but this does not seem to be prejudicial to either sex, though there is absolutely no difference in their habits or their habitat. In all the different races of bushbucks, however, with which I am acquainted, the males are much darker in colour than the females, so that it is not so very surprising that in the case of the inyala and the Cape bushbuck the males should have been the first to lose their stripes and spots in a sombre environment. In the case of the Cape bushbuck the adult females have already lost all the stripes and most of the spots of the ancestral form. The female inyala is, however, one of the most distinctly striped and spotted representatives of the tragelaphine group.
I cannot see that facts support the opinion that the uniform dull brown coloration of both sexes of the southern race of situtunga has been brought about for the purpose of protection from carnivorous enemies. During the daytime these animals live in the midst of beds of reeds growing in water where they cannot be approached except by wading; but at night they are often killed by leopards, and perhaps sometimes by lions, whilst feeding just outside the reed beds, on open ground which has perhaps been recently swept by a veld fire, and where young reeds and grass are just sprouting. At such a time their actual colour can be of no more use in the way of protecting them from their keen-scented feline foes than if it were black or red or grey. To me it seems far more probable that the situtunga has gradually lost the stripes and spots of the ancestral form from which it is derived, and assumed a uniform dull brown coloration, because it has lived for ages amongst reed beds of one dull monotonous colour, than because a uniform brown coat affords it a special protection against carnivorous foes.
I gather from the writings of Mr. A. R. Wallace and other well-known naturalists that, whereas the coloration of all animals is supposed to be due to the need of protection from carnivorous beasts, many species have developed in addition what are known as recognition marks, to enable them to distinguish members of their own species from nearly allied forms, or to help them to quickly recognise and rejoin the members of the herd or family from which they may have been separated.
That many large mammals belonging to different genera, and living in widely separated parts of the globe, are marked with conspicuous patches of white on the rump, neck, or face, or throw up bushy tails when running, showing a large white under surface, is an indisputable fact, though it is not possible to say that the possession of such a conspicuous coloration is absolutely necessary to the well-being of any particular species, because there will nearly always be other species living in the same country, and subject to the attacks of the same predatory animals, in which these so-called recognition marks are absent. However, on the supposition that carnivorous animals hunt by sight, it seems to me that no animal can be said to be protectively coloured which is marked in any way so conspicuously as to be recognisable by others of its own species at a distance, for it would be equally recognisable by all predatory animals, and caribou and white-tailed deer or African antelopes cannot escape from wolves or wild dogs by running like rabbits into burrows.
Personally, I cannot see why large antelopes which live in herds on open plains should require special recognition marks, as in such localities the bulk of an animal's whole body would be plainly visible at a great distance no matter what its colour might be. If an antelope became separated from its fellows by night, all so-called recognition marks would be invisible at a very short distance. It must be remembered, however, that every species of animal has a peculiar and very distinctive smell of its own, and my own observations would lead me to believe that most wild animals recognise one another, as a rule, more by scent than by sight.
It seems difficult to believe that there can be any truth in the theory suggested by Mr. Wallace, that recognition marks have been developed in certain species of large mammals because they are necessary to enable nearly allied species of animals to know their own kind at a glance, and so prevent interbreeding; for the ranges of very nearly allied forms of one genus, such as the various species of hartebeests and oryxes, or the bontebok and the blesbok, very seldom overlap, and so each species keeps true of necessity and without the help of special recognition marks. Where the ranges of two nearly allied species do overlap interbreeding probably will take place.
There seems little doubt that the species of hartebeest known as Neumann's hartebeest has interbred with Jackson's hartebeest in certain districts where the ranges of the two species meet. In the neighbourhood of Lake Nakuru, in British East Africa, I shot, in February 1903, a hartebeest which was not a Jackson's hartebeest, but which closely resembled an animal of that species in the character of its horns and the measurements of its skull, whilst all the others in the same herd appeared to be true Neumann's. I have known too of one undoubted case of the interbreeding of the South African hartebeest (B. Caama) with the tsessebe (Damaliseus lunatus).
This animal (an adult male) was shot by my friend Cornelis van Rooyen in Western Matabeleland, where the ranges of the two species just overlap. In coloration it was like a tsessebe, but had the comparatively bushy tail of the hartebeest, whilst its skull and horns (which are, I am glad to say, in the collection of the Natural History Museum at South Kensington) are exactly intermediate between those of the two parent species. This skull has been very unsatisfactorily labelled "supposed hybrid between B. Caama and D. lunatus." But as, when I presented it to the Natural History Museum, I gave at the same time a full description of the animal to which it had belonged, which I got from the man who actually shot it, there is no supposition in the matter. If the skull and horns in question are not those of a hybrid between the South African hartebeest and the tsessebe, then they must belong to an animal still unknown to science.
There is, I think, no large mammal in the whole world whose coat shows a greater richness of bloom and a more abrupt contrast of colours than the bontebok, so called by the old Dutch colonists of the Cape because of its many coloured hide, for bont means spotted, or blotched, or variegated. The whole neck, the chest, the sides and under parts of the head, and the sides of the body of this remarkable antelope are of a rich dark brown, and the central part of the back is of a beautiful purple lilac; whilst, in strong contrast to these rich dark colours, the whole front of the face, a good-sized patch on the rump, the whole belly, and the legs are of a pure and brilliant white. In life, and when they are in good condition, a wonderful sheen plays and shimmers over the glossy coats of these beautifully coloured animals, which fully atones for the want of grace and refinement in the shape of their heads and the heavy build of their bodies.
Now, a practical acquaintance with the very limited extent of country in which the bontebok has been evolved, and where the survivors of the race still live, makes it quite impossible for me to believe that the extraordinarily brilliant colouring of this species of antelope can have been gradually developed in order to make it inconspicuous and therefore difficult of detection by carnivorous animals, nor can I believe that it has been evolved for the purpose of mutual recognition between individuals of the species; for although the snow-white blaze down the face or the white rump patch might very well subserve such a purpose, I see no necessity, looking to the habitat and the habits of the bontebok, for special recognition marks.