Part 12

Antilope (Oryx) bezoastica, =H. Smith=, Griff. An. K. iv. p. 191, v. p. 327 (1827). Oryx bezoarticus, =Fitz.= SB. Wien, lix. pt. 1, p. 178 (1869).

Vernacular Names:—Toa or Tao of the Hebrews and Egyptians (Hamilton Smith); Abu-harb, of Sennaar and Kordofan Arabs (Licht.); Wahsch el Baqer and Baqer el Wádi of the Arabs (Heuglin); Lymbe and Aschamel of the Tuaregs (Barth.).

Height at withers about 40 inches. Prevailing colour of the sides of the body yellowish or reddish white, often more or less dappled with blotches of pale brown; neck and shoulders above the base of the leg ruddy brown, this colour extending from the withers along the back and becoming diffused over the rump, thighs, and base of the tail. Head whitish, with a greyish-brown patch on the nose and on the forehead, the two united by an ill-defined brownish stripe; a stripe of the same hue extending a short distance above the eye and below it on to the middle of the cheek; the hinder part of the cheek of the same reddish-brown colour as the neck; ears dirty white, the tips and rims not darkened. No distinct dark stripe along the throat, no dark stripe along the middle of the back and nape of the neck, and only a faint longitudinal stripe on each side between the flanks and belly; mane of neck brown. Legs whitish in tint, clouded in front with brown, which spreads downwards from the shoulders and thighs. Hairs along the spine reversed from rump.

Horns long, with a bold crescentic backward curvature; attaining a length of nearly 40 inches.

A skull offers the following measurements:—Basal length 13 inches, muzzle to orbit 9, greatest width 5·75.

Female similar to the male, but horns thinner.

Hab. Interior of North Africa from Dongola to Senegal.

Whatever the Oryx of Aristotle, Pliny, and other ancient writers may have been (which has been a subject of much discussion), there can be little doubt that the Oryx of Oppian, commemorated in his celebrated poem on the Chase, was based on an Antelope of this group. In the Latin translation of Oppian’s work it is described as a beast much dreaded by its fellow creatures:—

“In densis etiam sævissima bestia sylvis Trux stabulatur Oryx, odium commune ferarum Præcipuusque timor. Cornu gerit acre, colorem Lactis habet verni: facies est candida, solæ In vultu malæ picea caligine nigrant: Turgescit duplex crassa pinguedine dorsum. Cornua sublimes excelsa feruntur in auras, In quibus est mucro fuscus, lethalis et acer.”

The classical term “Oryx” was first introduced into scientific literature by Pallas in his memoir on the genus Antilope published in 1767. But here he grossly misapplied the term “Oryx” to the Eland, which he called Antilope oryx. In his second memoir on the same subject, however (1777), Pallas corrected this unfortunate error, and transferred Oryx to the Gemsbok of the Cape, to which it was certainly much better applicable.

In 1816 De Blainville, when subdividing the Antelopes, first adopted Oryx as a generic term, and made the Antilope oryx of Pallas (that is, Oryx gazella) its type. The generic name of the present species was thus settled, but before we can arrive at its proper specific name some further explanation is necessary.

By modern authorities, almost without exception, the present Antelope has been called the “Leucoryx, Oryx leucoryx,” and it is well known by this name in the Museums and Zoological Gardens of Europe. But when we proceed to investigate the strict claims of the present animal to this title, a difficult question presents itself. The Antilope leucoryx of Pallas in all probability, and certainly the Antilope leucoryx of succeeding authors until about 1827, was not the present species, but, as will be clearly shown in our next article, the Beatrix.

Buffon, in his ‘Histoire Naturelle,’ called the present species “l’Algazel,” and Pallas and his followers named it Antelope gazella. But the term “gazella,” as we shall presently show, had been previously appropriated by Linnæus to the allied Gemsbok of Southern Africa. The fact is that most of the early authors had no clear ideas as to the distinctive characters of the present animal, and habitually confounded it both with the Beatrix of Arabia and the Gemsbok of the Cape.

The earliest travellers of modern days to meet with the Leucoryx in its native wilds and to transmit perfect specimens of it home to Europe were the well-known German naturalists Hemprich and Ehrenberg, who explored Nubia, Arabia, and the adjoining countries from 1820 to 1825. Unfortunately Lichtenstein, who first described and figured their specimens of this Antelope about the year 1827, chose to identify it with the Antilope leucoryx of Pallas and to employ Pallas’s name for it. In the ‘Symbolæ Physicæ,’ in which Hemprich and Ehrenberg’s own account of their expedition was given to the world in 1828, Lichtenstein’s example of using Antilope leucoryx as the scientific name of the present species was followed.

Hemprich and Ehrenberg state that they had originally intended to have called this species Antilope ensicornis, but that they eventually gave up their proposed designation for the term adopted by Lichtenstein. The same was the case also with nearly all the leading authorities subsequent to Lichtenstein, so that to attempt to restore the name “leucoryx” to what is probably its proper owner would now only create confusion. We prefer therefore to designate the present species as Oryx leucoryx (Licht.), to which name it is undoubtedly entitled.

After giving an accurate description of the present animal, and figures of the two specimens brought home, which, although of not first-rate quality, are perfectly recognizable, Hemprich and Ehrenberg inform us that they met with it in Dongola, between Ambukol on the Upper Nile and Simrie near Chor-el-Lebben, where they hunted it along with the Arabs on horseback.

In Dongola and Kordofan, they proceed to tell us, this Antelope is met with in herds in the deserts. Its flesh is much appreciated by the Arabs, and is dried and laid by for future use, being likewise often sold in the markets. Its skins are used for shields and sandals, but are not considered of first-rate quality for these purposes. The Arabs of the Kubabish tribe, they inform us, call this Antelope “Abu-harb,” and state that it lives chiefly on the leaves and twigs of the acacias (Acacia textilis and A. ehrenbergi) which are found in the valleys of the desert in this district.

The next great explorer of North-eastern Africa, Rüppell, does not add much to our knowledge of the present species, which, in his list of Antelopes in the ‘Neue Wirbelthiere,’ he tells us, lives in herds in the deserts of Nubia and also in Egypt proper, as far north as the borders of the Fayoum. He comments, however, upon its confusion by Lichtenstein with the A. leucoryx of Pallas, and calls it Antilope algazella, after Buffon.

Our third leading authority on North-African mammals, Theodor von Heuglin, informs us that the Leucoryx was only met with by him in Southern Nubia and Kordofan, and in the oasis of El-Kāb, west of Dongola. But, according to the Central-African traveller Nachtigal, the range of this species extends into Borgu and Tibeste, while Barth in 1850 met with it in the hills of Air or Asben, north of Agades, in about 19° N. lat. and 9° E. long.

Proceeding still further westward, we may state that there can be little doubt that the Leucoryx was formerly met with in the southern part of Tunisia, although at the present epoch it seems to be nearly, if not quite, extinct in the Beylik. When Sclater was in Tunis in 1898 he observed a stuffed specimen of a young Leucoryx Antelope in the palace of the Bey at Marsa, and was told that it had been originally received alive from the southern frontiers of Tunisia (see P.Z.S. 1898, p. 280).

In the Musée Alaoui, at the Bardo Palace, Tunis, Sclater was also shown an unmistakable figure of a Leucoryx attacked by a Lion, represented on a piece of Roman mosaic pavement. Of this figure Sir Harry Johnston has kindly furnished us with the accompanying sketch (fig. 92, p. 48).

The mosaic pavement in question, which was discovered among the remains of a Roman villa in the vicinity of Tunis, contains representations of various animals of the chase found in that district in Roman times. The Gætulus Oryx of Juvenal (Sat. xi. 140) was therefore in all probability the Leucoryx.

We are not aware of any authentic records of the occurrence of the Leucoryx on the southern frontiers of Algeria and Morocco, where, in recent times, it has probably been driven far into the interior. But when we go on as far west as Senegal and Nigeria it would appear that the Leucoryx, or a form so closely allied to it as to be barely distinguishable, is still abundant in the Senegambian deserts, and is also, according to Capt. Mockler-Ferryman, met with on the Nile in the vicinity of Lokoja.

The first specimen of the Leucoryx received from Senegal was, so far as we know, that figured by Geoffroy St.-Hilaire and F. Cuvier in 1819 in the ‘Histoire Naturelle des Mammifères’ (plate 376), which was then living in the Jardin des Plantes. This, we are told, was an adult male, standing about four feet high to the top of its head, and having long and well-developed horns.

When the thirteenth Earl of Derby formed his great menagerie at Knowsley between 1835 and 1850, the group of the Leucoryx Antelopes was one of the specialities of the collection. The adult male and female were figured by Waterhouse Hawkins in plate xvii. of the ‘Gleanings,’ and the young one, born at Knowsley, forms one of the figures in plate xvi. of the same work.

Lord Derby obtained his first female Leucoryx in 1837, but it was not until the retirement of Mr. Cross from the Surrey Zoological Gardens and the consequent dispersal of that collection, some six or seven years afterwards, that he succeeded in acquiring a male. Owing to the age of the female at that time, although she bred twice with the male she failed to rear her offspring, and died in 1846, being then, as Lord Derby believed, the only female of this species in England. When the Derby Menagerie was dispersed in August 1851, the pair of Leucoryx Antelopes were among the animals selected by the Zoological Society of London, in virtue of Lord Derby’s bequest to them, and became the foundation of a stock which flourished for many years in the Regent’s Park Gardens. Young ones were bred of this pair or of their descendants in 1852, 1853, 1860, and 1864. Fresh examples of the Leucoryx were obtained by the Society in 1870 and 1880, and in 1881 a fine female was brought home and presented to the Menagerie by the late Mr. John M. Cook, F.Z.S.

This Antelope has not done so well in the Regent’s Park of late years, but there is still one example of it living in the Menagerie, obtained last year, and it is hoped that a breeding pair may soon be re-established. An excellent figure of the adults of both sexes of the Leucoryx Antelope, drawn by Wolf from the Zoological Society’s specimens, was published in the first volume of Wolf and Sclater’s ‘Zoological Sketches.’ In the second volume of the same work a young one, likewise drawn by the same skilful artist, is represented on plate xix. The calf in question was born in 1851, and was about six months old when Mr. Wolfs water-colour drawing (from which fig. 93, p. 49, has been taken) was prepared.

Lord Derby’s stock of the Leucoryx is said to have been received from Nubia, while others in the Zoological Society’s Gardens came from Senegal.