recognizable, though rather misleading, account of the Eland, which
at that epoch was still found in the mountains near Capetown. In 1764
Buffon, in the twelfth volume of his ‘Histoire Naturelle,’ called it
“Le Coudous,” or, at any rate, gave unmistakable figures of its horns
under that name, which, we suppose, he had by some error transposed to
it from the Kudu (_Strepsiceros capensis_). It was mainly upon
Kolben’s _Alces capensis_ and Buffon’s “_Coudous_” that
Pallas, in his first essay on the genus _Antilope_ (1776), based
his _Antilope_ _oryx_, alleging that it “seemed to be” the
_Antilope oryx_ of ancient authors! At the same time he states
that he had examined a complete skeleton of this animal in the Museum
of Prince William of Holland. Very unfortunately, in his second and
amended list of the Antelopes, Pallas proposed to make a change in his
former names by transferring the term “_oryx_” to another animal
(the _Antilope bezoartica_ of his first memoir) and assigning
the new name “_oreas_” to the Eland. This change, however, we
may say, has been generally acquiesced in, and the name _oreas_
has been almost universally applied to the Eland, either specifically
or generically, until modern days, when the zealous searchers after
priority have resuscitated Pallas’s long-forgotten term “_oryx_.”
This, indeed, seems certainly to be the earliest specific name
applicable to the present animal and should, in strict justice, be
adopted.
As regards its generic name the Eland has been equally unfortunate.
Desmarest, in 1822, first proposed to use “_Oreas_” as a
subgeneric term for this form; and Gray, in 1850, employed it as a
genus, combining it with the specific term “_canna_,” so that
the name of the Eland became _Oreas canna_. As will be seen by
our list of synonyms, this name was generally adopted, and has been
in constant use for the present species for the last twenty years. We
have, however, shown that “_oreas_,” as a specific term, must
give place to “_oryx_”; and in like manner “_Oreas_” cannot
stand as a generic term for the present animal, because it has been
previously employed in zoology as a genus of Lepidoptera (1806) and as
a genus of Mollusca (1808), both of which antedate Desmarest’s use of
it in 1822. Under these circumstances it is necessary to adopt the next
given name, _Taurotragus_ of Wagner, and the correct scientific
name of the Eland, according to modern usage, will be _Taurotragus
oryx_.
Having now stated at full length our reasons for the unwelcome but
necessary change of name of this Antelope, we will resume our comments
on its literary history.
In the Supplement to his ‘Histoire Naturelle,’ published in 1782,
Buffon was able to give an improved account of the Eland. This was
mostly copied from Allamand’s article inserted in Schneider’s
edition of the ‘Histoire Naturelle,’ issued at Amsterdam in the
previous year, and was accompanied by a perfectly recognizable figure
of the whole animal under the name of “Le Canna,” adopted from its
supposed Hottentot appellation. Shortly afterwards (1783) Vosmaer,
in a number of his ‘Regnum Animale,’ published a full description
and coloured figure of the Eland from a specimen then living in the
Menagerie of the Prince of Orange in Holland, probably the same as
that from which Allamand had taken his information. Sparrman, who
visited the Cape about this period, also gave a good account of the
structure and habits of this Antelope, as observed by him in the
Alexandria and Somerset-East Divisions of the Colony. Paterson, in
1790, recorded having met with Elands in Caledon, as also in the
Van-Ryndorp and Uitenhage Divisions a few years previously. Thunberg,
another well-known traveller and naturalist (1795), found the Eland
in Uniondale, and Lichtenstein in Calvinia, Aberdeen, and Middelburg
(1803–4). Our countryman Burchell, as recorded in his ‘Travels,’ came
across Elands in 1822, in Prieska, Herbert, and Britstown, and found
them numerous in Hanover.
We may now pass on to the days of Harris, whose celebrated
hunting-expedition into the interior took place in 1836 and 1837. Even
at that date the Eland was pronounced to be extinct in the Cape Colony,
but was met with in abundance on the banks of the Vaal River, where
Harris feasted himself and his followers on its succulent meat.
By all classes in Africa, Harris writes, the flesh of the Eland is
deservedly esteemed over that of any other animal:
“Both in grain and color it resembles beef, but is far better
tasted and more delicate, possessing a pure game flavor, and
exhibiting the most tempting looking layers of fat and lean—the
surprising quantity of the former ingredient with which it is
interlarded exceeding that of any other game-quadruped with which
I am acquainted. The venison fairly melts in the mouth; and as for
the brisket, that is absolutely a cut for a monarch.”
It is right, however, to mention that other experienced authorities do
not altogether agree with Harris’s pronouncement on this subject. Mr.
Selous, for example, states his opinion that the flesh of the Eland has
been “very much over-estimated,” and is “not to be compared in flavour
with that of the Buffalo, Giraffe, Hippopotamus, and White Rhinoceros.”
(_De gustibus non est disputandum_!)
Harris describes the favourite haunts of the Eland on the Vaal River in
his days as follows:—
“The Eland frequents the open prairies and low rocky hills
interspersed with clumps of wood, but is never to be met with in a
continuously wooded country. Rejoicing especially in low belts of
shaded hillocks, and in the isolated groves of _Acacia capensis_
which, like islands in the ocean, are scattered over many of the
stony and gravelly plains of the interior, large herds of them are
also to be seen grazing like droves of oxen on the more verdant
meadows, through which some silver rivulet winds in rainbow
brightness betwixt fringes of sighing bulrushes. Fat and lethargic
groups may be seen scattered up and down the gentle acclivities,
some grazing on the hill side, and others lazily basking in the
morning sunbeam. Advancing they appear to move like a regiment of
cavalry in single files, the goodliest bulls leading the van;
whereas during a retreat these it is that uniformly bring up the
rear. As the day dawned over the boundless meads of the Vaal River
spread with a rich carpet of luxuriant herbage, and enamelled with
pastures of brilliant flowers, vast droves of these lordly animals
were constantly to be seen moving in solemn procession across the
profile of the silent and treeless landscape, portions of which
were often covered with long coarse grass, which when dry and
waving its white hay-like stalks to the breeze, imparted to the
plain the delusive and alluring appearance of ripe cornfields.”
Since Harris issued his work in 1840 all the writers on the
game-animals of Southern Africa have devoted more or less space to
the Eland. Delagorgue, who published his travels in 1847, found
this Antelope in plenty in Zululand. Methuen, in his ‘Life in the
Wilderness’ (1848), describes its habits in the Kalahari Desert, and
Livingstone (1857) alludes to the Eland as being able to exist without
water, and states that one may see hundreds of them in places thirty or
forty miles distant from that element. The Hon. W. H. Drummond, in his
‘Rough Notes on the Large Game of South Africa,’ has devoted a whole
chapter to the pursuit of the Eland, which he met with on the Black
and White Umvalosi Rivers, and in other districts, but not within the
Colony itself, in which, according to Bryden, it became extinct between
1840 and 1850, having probably lingered longer in the waterless deserts
of Bushman’s Land than in any other locality.
Finally, Mr. H. A. Bryden, writing in 1897, in his ‘Nature and Sport
in South Africa,’ on the rapidly disappearing forms of South-African
game, laments the noblest of all the Antelopes of the world as taking
the lead in this sad progress. At the present time, he says, one must
go far north into the parched and pathless recesses of the Upper
Kalahari before the “vanishing Eland” can be reached, and “even in
these unexplored wilds these rare creatures can nowadays be scarcely
considered safe.” Mr. Bryden proceeds to describe the progress of its
extermination now going on as follows:—
“Directly the rain falls, hunters from among the Bakwèna,
Bangwaketse, and Bamangwato tribes, well-mounted, and armed with
breech-loading rifles, penetrate to the innermost recesses of the
Kalahari, and, wandering from one pool of rain-water to another,
deal destruction among the game, and especially among the Giraffes
and Elands. That Elands are still plentiful in these regions of
the Kalahari I can personally testify, having found them in
numbers, and procured specimens in two or three days’ hunting from
the desert road between Khama’s and the Botletli river (between
Inkonanē and Kannē) within recent years. Coming down country, too,
I saw at Sechele’s town—Molepolole—numbers of horns and heads of
freshly slain Elands, some of them magnificent examples, which had
been recently shot by Bakwèna hunters. But that, even in the North
Kalahari, these and other game can long resist the incessant war
of extermination waged against them, I am much more than
doubtful.”
Thus we see that the typical brown unstriped Eland, which formerly
pervaded the whole of the Cape Colony and the adjacent districts, and
in 1652 (according to Van Riebeck) was found even on Table Mountain,
is now, as nearly as possible, extinct; although its closely-allied
white-striped brother, called Livingstone’s Eland, after the
distinguished explorer and missionary, is still to be met with in the
countries further north. As regards the points of difference between
Livingstone’s Eland and the typical form, which we will now proceed to
explain, we cannot do better than quote from Mr. Selous’s excellent
article on the subject lately published in Mr. Rowland Ward’s ‘Great
and Small Game of South Africa’:—
“The Eland of South-western Africa, as described by the earlier
European travellers who visited the Cape Colony in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, and more recently figured by Sir
Cornwallis Harris from specimens obtained in 1837 in what is now
British Bechuanaland and the Western Transvaal, was of a uniform
pale fawn-colour from birth, though the coats of the older animals
gradually became so thin that the dark colour of the underlying
skin showed more and more through the scanty hair, giving them a
general greyish appearance, the old bulls often looking a bluish-
black in deep shade, and being described by the colonists as ‘blue
bulls.’ On the other hand, all the Elands found throughout
Rhodesia and Eastern South Africa, and wherever I have travelled
to the north of the Zambesi, are striped. The calves are a rich
reddish-fawn in ground-colour, with a dark mark down the back,
black patches on the insides of the fore-legs, and eight or nine
conspicuous white stripes on each side,”
As these striped Elands grow up, Mr. Selous continues, they differ
considerably one from another. Both bull and cow become of a bluish
grey as their coats become thinner with age, and at a little distance
the white stripes are often indistinguishable, although as long as
there is any hair left they can always be seen on close inspection.
Also the dark patches on the inner sides of the front legs become more
faint with age, and in very old animals disappear altogether.
Mr. Selous also points out that intermediate forms are found between
the two subspecies of Elands, and that, in fact, there is a complete
passage through a long series of variations from one form to the other.
That this is the case is shown clearly by Mr. Selous’s own
observations. He writes (in the same work) as follows:—
“In April 1879 I shot some Elands in the Northern Kalahari,
between Bamangwato and the Botletli River. None of these Elands
showed any signs of stripes, but two of them had light grey
patches on the insides of the fore-legs. About 150 miles farther
north, however, nearly all the Elands that I shot were more or
less striped, though in most cases the stripes were so faint that
they only became apparent on a close inspection. Travelling
northwards towards the Chobi River, I found that although Elands
were still to be met with, on which no stripes could be detected,
most of them were more or less plainly striped, the patches on the
insides of the fore-legs becoming gradually darker at the same
time. North of the Chobi, and between that river and the Zambesi,
the Elands, taken as a whole, become well striped, and the dark
markings on the insides of the fore-legs more and more
conspicuous, many individuals being as richly marked as the real
_Taurotragus oryx livingstonii_, which was first observed by Dr.
Livingstone at Sesheke, immediately north of the Central Zambesi.
Thus, speaking from my own experience, I should say that all the
Elands found in South Africa at the present day south of the 23rd
parallel of latitude are grey Elands (_Taurotragus oryx typicus_),
but that north of that parallel of latitude a tendency to show
white stripes on each side of the body, and dark patches on the
insides of the fore-legs, together with a dark median line down
the centre of the back, from the withers to the tail, commences. I
would say further that this tendency is at first confined to
certain individuals, but becomes more general, and the white
stripes and dark markings gradually more intensified in
individuals, as one travels north and north-east, until north of
the Zambesi and in Mashunaland, and all over South-eastern Africa,
all the Elands are striped without exception, and all of them show
black patches on the insides of the fore-legs and a dark mark down
the centre of the back, and often a white arrow-shaped mark across
the nose, as in the Koodoo and Bushbuck.”
Mr. Bryden and other well-known authorities on the game-animals of
South Africa entirely confirm Mr. Selous’s observations.
Under these circumstances it seems quite impossible to treat
Livingstone’s Eland as a distinct species, but, as will be seen by our
list of synonyms, we have placed it under a different heading, and
have assigned most of the references to Elands north of the Zambesi to
_Taurotragus oryx livingstonii_.
We will now, starting from the Zambesi, endeavour to trace the Eland
into the most northern part of its range.
[Illustration:
Fig. 116.
Skull and horns of Livingstone’s Eland, ♂.
(P.Z.S. 1895, p. 690.)
]
Peters, in his ‘Reise nach Mossambique,’ gives several localities for
the Eland in the Portuguese Provinces on the Zambesi. Mr. R. Crawshay,
who has devoted great attention to the Antelopes of Nyasaland, tells
us that the Eland is widely distributed there, both on the hills and
on the wooded plains at the foot of them, and gives many localities in
which they are to be met with. As regards its markings, he informs us
that it is subject to great variety in British East Africa, “both in
colour and as regards the plainness or otherwise of the white stripes.”
In a single troop, individuals may be seen varying from a light tawny
yellow to the slaty blue of old age, while in some the stripes are
clearly defined, in others faintly, and in others again they are not
distinguishable at all.
In 1895 Sir Harry Johnston, K.C.B., F.Z.S., presented to the Zoological
Society of London a remarkably fine pair of horns of Livingstone’s
Eland, which are now suspended in their meeting-room at Hanover Square.
The animal which carried them was shot in 1893 in Nyasaland between
Zomba and Lake Chilwa. By the kind favour of that Society we are able
to insert in these pages a copy of the figure of these horns (fig. 116,
p. 205), which was published in the ‘Proceedings’ for 1895.
When we go further north into German East Africa, the Eland appears to
be not quite so abundant, although Herr Matschie mentions it as found
in Usagara, and it was seen by Neumann between the Pangani River and
Irangi during his recent journey, besides having been met with in Ugogo
by Speke and Grant in former years.
In British East Africa it would appear to be more prevalent again,
although somewhat local. Mr. Jackson, in his volume on ‘Big Game,’
writes as follows concerning its range and habits in that country:—
“The striped variety of the Eland is the only one found in British
East Africa. It is known to the Swahilis as ‘Mpofu,’ and is
decidedly a local beast. It is seen more often in open bush and
country thinly wooded with mimosa-trees than quite out in the
open. In 1887 it was plentiful round Taveta, where I have seen as
many as from sixty to seventy in one herd. In the open bush
country west of Mount Kisigao Elands are fairly numerous. Other
places in which they are found are the park-like country below Ndi
in Teita; the open country east of Ndara and north of Mount
Maungu; and the Siringeti plains. I have also seen them between
Lakes Nakuro and Baringo, and again in Turkwel, in the Suk
country. As a rule they go about in herds of from four or five up
to fifteen or twenty. Sometimes two or three bulls will be found
together, but very often an old bull is met with quite by
himself.”
Mr. S. L. Hinde has kindly favoured us with the following field-notes
of his recent experience of the Eland in British East Africa:—
“Having just returned from British East Africa, where I have spent
the greater part of the last five years, the following field-notes
may be of some interest to you. The Eland of East Africa, which,
so far as I have observed, has well-marked white stripes on its
back and haunches, is both rare and wary. It is reported to have
suffered severely from the rinderpest in the early nineties. In
the bush-country within 200 miles of the coast, and more
particularly in the neighbourhood of what is known as the Taro
Desert, Elands have always been met with, and are even now
comparatively numerous. But the heads from the herds in this
neighbourhood, if one may judge by the few specimens which have
been obtained, have usually small and misshaped horns. Outside the
bush-country, on the Mkindu and the Athi Plains, herds of the
Eland are occasionally met with, but there is no doubt that they
migrate from one district to another. It is commonly reported that
Elands were never seen on the Athi Plains until a few years ago,
but at present, during the months of June, July, and August,
Elands are generally to be found in the vicinity of the Athi
river. In these months of the years 1898 and 1899 there were, to
my knowledge, two or three herds of Elands on the Athi Plains. The
largest herd that I observed contained over 60 head, but I have
never seen a really good pair of horns from this neighbourhood.”
Count Teleki, as we are informed by Herr v. Höhnel in his narrative of
the first expedition to Lake Rudolf, met with the Eland on the Likipia
plateau, north of Mount Kenya, where, according to a letter addressed
by v. Höhnel to Sclater, they encountered a herd of about 170. But
we are not aware of any evidence of its being found further north in
British East Africa or in any part of Somaliland. Here, therefore,
we appear to have reached its furthest limits in this direction, but
further west, in the Valley of the Nile, there is good evidence of the
existence of this form of Antelope in much higher latitudes.
The famous explorer Baron von Heuglin was the first traveller who
recorded the existence of an Eland in the districts of the Upper Nile,
although v. Pruyssenaer (as Heuglin states) had previously recognized
its occurrence on the Bahr el-Abiad and Bahr-el-Sobat. But Heuglin,
having obtained a pair of Eland’s horns from the Upper White Nile,
about 7° N. lat., referred them, on account of their large size, to
a new species, “_Boselaphus gigas_.” He gives a figure of these
horns and states that they measure 35 inches in length, and show a
distance of 32 inches between the two points. We have thought it
advisable to reproduce Heuglin’s figure of this remarkable pair of
horns (see fig. 117, p. 208). In a subsequent work (‘Reise in das Geb.
d. Weiss. Nil’) Heuglin adds that his _Taurotragus gigas_ is found
in pairs and singly in the forests of the Djur River and amongst the
Arol negros.
[Illustration:
Fig. 117
Horns of _Taurotragus oryx gigas_.
(Heuglin, Ant. u. Büff. N.O.-Afr. pl. i. fig. 2.)
]
The well-known traveller Schweinfurth, in his ’Im Herzen von Afrika,’
also alludes more than once to the existence of the Eland on the upper
confluents of the White Nile. In the first place, he met with it in
Bongoland, where he says that it resorts to the drier slopes of the
hills during the rains, and descends to the valleys in the winter
months. In the second volume of his narrative, Schweinfurth mentions
it again, and gives two figures of the horns of what he calls the
Central-African Eland, of two very different forms. Schweinfurth
states that the skin is plainly striped, and that this is certainly
no mark of youth, because he has seen very old examples which had
about fifteen narrow parallel stripes, about a finger in breadth, on
both sides. It is quite evident, therefore, that the Eland of this
part of Africa belongs to the striped form. It may be identical with
_T. o. livingstonii_, but, as Heuglin has given it a name, we
will allow him the benefit of the doubt for the present, and will call
this northern striped form _Taurotragus oryx gigas_ until further
investigations have been made.
[Illustration:
Fig. 118.
Abnormal horns of female Eland.
_a_, front view; _b_, side view; _c_, transverse section
at spot marked =x=.
(P.Z.S. 1889, p. 74.)
]
Before closing our systematic account of the Eland we must say a few
words respecting some curious horns which were at first ascribed to a
new and unknown Antelope, but are now generally admitted to be nothing
more than abnormal horns of the cow Eland. These horns were first
brought before the scientific world by Dr. Günther, who exhibited
a pair of them at a meeting of the Zoological Society in 1889, and
stated that they had been obtained on the frontiers of Natal. Dr.
Günther’s opinion was that they belonged to an unknown Antelope of the
Tragelaphine group, but under the uncertainty as to what form they
were most nearly allied, he proposed to designate the presumed species
_Antilope triangularis_. Through the courtesy of the Zoological
Society of London, and with Dr. Günther’s kind permission, we are able
to reproduce here the illustration of these horns (fig. 118, p. 209)
which accompanied Dr. Günther’s paper in the Society’s ‘Proceedings.’
Writing of these horns in 1891, Mr. Lydekker was so convinced of their
essential difference from those of any other known Antelope that he
proposed to raise the animal that bore them to generic rank under the
name “_Doratoceros_.”
Some years subsequently, in 1896, Sclater obtained, on loan, a fine
pair of horns of nearly similar character from Mr. Justice Hopley,
of Kimberley, and, after comparing them with the typical pair of
_Antilope triangularis_ in the British Museum, came to the
conclusion that they must have belonged to the same species of
Antelope. Mr. Justice Hopley’s pair were not quite so long, rather more
incurved backwards, and less broadly spread; they were also smoother at
the base, showing but slight traces of corrugations. When exhibiting
these horns to the Zoological Society, Mr. Sclater stated that he
could see nothing whatever to negative the opinion, already prevailing
amongst other naturalists, that these horns were abnormal horns of
the cow Eland, which had grown into a lengthened form without making
the ordinary twist usually observable in that species and in other
Tragelaphs. It is right to add that Mr. Lydekker himself is now also of
the same opinion, and has stated (‘Horns and Hoofs,’ p. 260) that these
horns “are almost certainly abnormal specimens of those of a cow Eland.”