3-077-720 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The "Water or Marsh Antelope" of the Lake Ngami and Upper Zambesi regions, 1890. 'there is a peculiar species, in different parts of Central Africa, which haunts the marshes and lakes and overflowed river, half immersing itself in water. This animal, the "Tragelaphus Spekii," named also "Hydro-tragus," was found by Captain Speke in the Victoria Nyanza region...We are indebted to Mr. James Arthur Nicolls...for a sketch of a young water-antelope, which was captured by his native servants, being then only ten days old, after he had shot the dam in the Taohe swamp...The animal is now four months old, a young doe...It is the first living specimen that has ever been obtained. The structure of the fore feet and hind feet are shown in two smaller drawings..."Unlike other water-buck, it rarely, if ever, issues forth at night on dry land, but confines its wanderings entirely to the marshes, where, immersed up to the belly in water, it grazes on coarse aqueous plants...Its mode of progression on hard ground is extremely awkward and painful in appearance, having to support the entire weight of the body on the points of the hoofs of the hind feet'. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.