Part 5

La Gazelle Tzeiran, =Buff.= Hist. Nat. Suppl. vi. p. 168, pl. xx. (1782).

Blaauw-bok, =Sparrm.= Voy. to Cape (Engl. transl.), ii. p. 219 (1786).

Blawe Bock, =Le Vaill.= Voy. à l’int. de l’Afrique, i. p. 58 (1790).

Antilope leucophæa, =Pall.= Misc. Zool. p. 4 (1766); =id.= Spic. Zool. fasc. i. p. 6 (1767), fasc. xii. p. 12 (1777); =Erxl.= Syst. R. A. p. 271 (1777); =Zimm.= Spec. Zool. Geogr. p. 545 (1777); =id.= Geogr. Gesch. ii. p. 106 (1780); =Gatt.= Brev. Zool. i. p. 78 (1780); =Schr.= Säug. pl. cclxxviii. (1784); =Bodd.= Elench. Anim. p. 139 (1785); =Gmel.= Linn. S. N. i. p. 182 (1788); =Kerr=, Linn. An. K. p. 306 (1792); =Donnd.= Zool. Beytr. p. 619 (1792); =Link=, Beytr. Nat. ii. p. 99 (1795); =Dandin=, in Lacépède’s Buffon, xiv. p. 183 (1799); =Bechst.= Syst. Uebers. vierf. Th. ii. p. 641 (1800); =Shaw=, Gen. Zool. ii. p. 355 (1801); =Turt.= Linn. S. N. i. p. 111 (1802); =Desm.= N. Dict. d’H. N. (1) xxiv. Tabl. p. 52 (1804); =G. Cuv.= Dict. Sci. Nat. ii. p. 204 (1804); =Tied.= Zool. i. p. 408 (1808); =Thunb.= Mém. Ac. Pétersb. iii. p. 313 (1811); =Licht.= Reise, i. p. 265, ii. p. 121 (1811–12); =G. Fisch.= Zoogn. iii. p. 416 (1814); Afz. N. Act. Ups. vii. p. 219 (1815); =Desm.= N. Diet. d’H. N. (2) ii. p. 204 (1816); =G. Cuv.= R. A. i. p. 262 (1817); =Goldf.= Schr. Säug. v. p. 1183 (1818); =Gray=, Med. Repos. xv. p. 307 (1821); =Schinz=, Cuv. Thierr. i. p. 394 (1821); =Desmoul.= Dict. Class. i. p. 446 (1822); =H. Sm.= Griff. An. K. iv. p. 176, v. p. 324 (1827); =Less.= Man. Mamm. p. 386 (1827); =J. B. Fisch.= Syn. Mamm. p. 479 (1829); =Smuts=, En. Mamm. Cap. p. 68 (1832); =Oken=, Allg. Naturg. vii. p. 1396 (1838); =Laurill.= Dict. Univ. d’H. N. i. p. 618 (1841); =Schinz=, Syn. Mamm. ii. p. 440 (1845); =Temm.= Esq. Zool. Guin. p. 192 (1853); =Gieb.= Säug. p. 295 (1853).

Capra leucophæa, =Thunb.= Resa, ii. p. 127 (1789); Engl. Transl. ii. p. 113 (1793).

Antilope (Bubalis) leucophæa, =Licht.= Mag. nat. Fr. Berl. vi. p. 159 (1814).

Cerophorus (Oryx) leucophæus, =De Blainv.= Bull. Soc. Philom. 1816, p. 75.

Antilope (Egocerus) leucophæa, =Desm.= Mamm. ii. p. 475 (1822).

Aigocerus leucophæus, =A. Sm.= S. Afr. Quart. Journ. ii. p. 185 (1834); =Gray=, Knowsl. Men. p. 16 (1850); =Fitz.= SB. Wien, lix. pt. 1, p. 177 (1869); =Huet=, Bull. Soc. Acclim. (4) iv. p. 483 (1887); =Jent.= Cat. Ost. Leyd. Mus. (Mus. Pays-Bas, ix.) p. 135; =id.= Cat. Mamm. Leyd. Mus. (t. c. xi.) p. 166 (1892).

Hippotragus leucophæus, =Sund.= Pecora, K. Vet.-Ak. Handl. 1844, p. 197 (1846); =id.= Hornschuch’s Transl., Arch. Skand. Beitr. ii. p. 148; Reprint, p. 72 (1848); =Kohl=, Ann. Mus. Wien, i. p. 83 (1886); =Bryden=, Kloof and Karroo, p. 290 (1889); =Flow. & Lyd.= Mamm. p. 343 (1891); =Lyd.= Horns and Hoofs, p. 245 (1893); =Trouess.= Cat. Mamm. fasc. iv. p. 952 (1898).

Antilope capensis, =P. L. S. Müll.= Natursyst. Suppl. p. 52 (1776).

Cemas glaucus, =Oken=, Lehrb. Nat. iii. pt. 2, p. 740 (1816).

Antilope glauca, =Forst.= Descr. Anim. p. 391 (1844).

Vernacular Name:—Blawe-bock of Dutch (Le Vaillant).

Size much less than in the two following species; height at withers from 45 inches (♂ in Paris) to 40 inches (♀ in Vienna). General colour bluish grey. Forehead brown; upper lip and a patch in front of the eye lighter than the general colour, but there are none of the marked black and white contrasts so prominent in H. equinus. Ears not so long or so pointed as in H. equinus, and without black tufts at their tips. Mane on nape of neck short, inconspicuous, directed forward; throat-mane almost or quite absent. Belly dull whitish, not contrasted with the sides. Limbs with an inconspicuous darker line down their anterior surfaces. Tail-tuft greyish, but little darker than the general colour.

Skull probably merely differing from that of H. equinus by its smaller size, but, so far as is known, no museum possesses an example of it.

Horns like those of H. equinus, but much smaller and more slender; perhaps rather longer in proportion to the size of the animal. Those of the Paris specimen (a male) measure 21½ inches in length round the curve and have 28 rings upon them. The pair in the British Museum are rather shorter.

Hab. Cape Colony only. (Exterminated at the end of the last century.)

The Blue-buck, like the Quagga (Equus quagga), belongs to the category of larger animals that have become extinct within the historic period. While the Square-lipped Rhinoceros (Rhinoceros simus) and the Mountain Zebra (Equus zebra) are still occasionally to be met with in one or two remote districts of South Africa, it would seem that the Blue-buck and the Quagga, as living creatures, have utterly perished from the face of the earth, and are only now represented by a few specimens in some of the principal museums of Europe.

Although the “Blaauwe-bok” or “Blau-bok” was long known to early travellers at the Cape under its vernacular names, the great Russian naturalist Pallas was the first to register it definitely in the ‘Annals of Science.’ Under the name Antilope leucophæa Pallas described it in 1766, in his ‘Miscellanea Zoologica,’ from a specimen in the Leyden Museum, and placed it as the first species of his genus Antilope. We have already, however (Book of Ant. III. p. 3), given the reasons why another species—the Black-buck of India—should be deemed to be the type of Pallas’s generic term Antilope, and in accordance with ordinary usage we employ Sundevall’s name Hippotragus for the present species and its allies.

The next author after Pallas to mention this Antelope appears to have been Allamand, who made various contributions to an edition of Buffon’s ‘Histoire Naturelle,’ issued in Holland by Schneider in 1766 and the following years. Allamand, however, carelessly confounded this South-African Antelope with the Gazella gutturosa of Siberia, of which the native name is Tzeiran or Dzéren (see Book of Ant. III. p. 84), and adopted the same name for it. Allamand’s figure of his “Tzeiran” was taken from a mounted specimen in the Cabinet d’Histoire Naturelle of J. C. Sylvius von Lennep, of Harlem, which on the death of the owner had passed by bequest to the Société Hollandaise des Sciences of that city. This specimen, when in skin, had been obtained from a dealer who did not know whence it came, but from the mode of its preparation it was believed by Allamand to have been brought from the Cape.

Our countryman Pennant, in his ‘History of Quadrupeds,’ of which the first edition was published in 1781, gave a third original description of this species, which he called the “Blue Antelope.” It was taken, he tells us, from a skin bought at Amsterdam, and said to have been obtained from the Cape of Good Hope. Pennant fully recognized its identity with Buffon’s “Tzeiran,” and remarked on the use of this erroneous Asiatic name for it.

Sparrman, who arrived at the Cape in 1772 and subsequently made a long journey into the interior, tells us in his narrative of having found a skin of the Blue-buck (which he identified with Pallas’s A. leucophæa and Pennant’s “Blue Antelope”) preserved at “Krakeel-rivier,” but he does not appear to have met with it alive himself.

But a rather later explorer of the Cape Colony, the well-known French naturalist François Le Vaillant, author of the ‘Oiseaux d’Afrique’ and many other ornithological works, was more fortunate. As Le Vaillant appears to have been the only traveller known to have himself obtained an example of this now extinct species, we will extract from the first volume of his ‘Voyage d’Afrique’ what he has written on this subject.

On December 18th, 1781, Le Vaillant left Capetown to explore the country to the east called “Hottentot Holland.” A few days later, after crossing the river Sonder-end, and passing through the valley of Soete-Melck, he arrived at a place called “Tiger-Hoek,” where he had appointed some Hottentots to meet him, and went on the chase in their company:—

“Nous eûmes bientôt joint quelques troupes de Gazelles; le pays en étoit couvert; mais elles se tenoient toujours hors de portée. Enfin, après avoir bien couru, mon chasseur m’arrêtant tout d’un coup, me dit qu’il aperçoit un Blawe-Bock (un Bouc bleu) couché. Je porte les yeux vers l’endroit qu’il m’indique et ne le vois pas. Il me prie alors de rester tranquille et de ne faire aucun mouvement, m’assurant de me rendre maître de l’animal. Aussitôt il prend un détour, se trainant sur ses genoux; je ne le perdois pas de vue, mais je ne comprenois rien à ce manège nouveau pour moi. L’animal se lève et bronte tranquillement sans s’éloigner de la place. Je le pris d’abord pour un cheval blanc; car, de l’endroit où j’étois resté, il me paroissoit entièrement de cette couleur (jusques-là je n’avois point encore vu cette espèce de Gazelle): je fus détrompé lorsque je vis ses cornes. Mon Hottentot se trainoit toujours sur le ventre, il s’approacha de si près et si promptement que mettre l’animal en joue et le tirer fut l’affaire d’un instant; la Gazelle tomba du coup. Je ne fis qu’un saut jusques-là et j’eus le plaisir de contempler à mon aise la plus rare et la plus belle des Gazelles d’Afrique. J’assurai mon Hottentot que, de retour au camp, je le recompenserois généreusement. Je l’envoyai aussitôt chercher un cheval pour transporter la chasse. L’intelligence de cet homme et les divers moyens qu’il avoit employés pour surprendre l’animal me rendoient son service important et précieux; je me proposois bien de me l’attacher par tous les appâts qui séduisent les Hottentots. Je commençai par lui donner une forte provision de tabac et je joiguis à ce présent de l’amadoue, un briquet et l’un de mes meilleurs couteaux. Il se servit de ce dernier meuble et se mit à dépecer l’animal avec la même adresse qu’il l’avoit tué. J’en conservai soigneusement la peau.

“Cette Gazelle a été décrite par Pennant, sous le nom d’Antilope bleu; par Buffon, sous le nom de Tzeiran. Ce dernier Naturaliste a donné la figure d’une partie de ses cornes; elle est rare et très-peu connue. Lors de ma résidence en Afrique, je n’ai vu que deux de ces Gazelles et une autre qui fut aportée au Gouverneur, quelques années après; pendant l’un de mes séjours à la Ville. Elles venoient, comme la mienne, de la vallée Soete-Melk, seul canton qu’elles habitent. On m’avoit assuré que j’en verrois dans le pays des grands Namaquois; malgré toutes mes informations et perquisitions j’ai été trompé dans cette attente. Tout les Sauvages m’ont assuré ne point la connoître. On m’avoit encore attesté que la femelle portoit des cornes ainsi que le mâle; je ne puis rien dire là-dessus, puisque les seules que j’aye vues étoient toutes trois de ce dernier genre.

“Sa couleur principale est un bleu léger, tirant sur le grisâtre; le ventre et l’intérieur des jambes dans toute leur longueur font d’un, blanc de neige; sa tête surtout est agréablement tachetée de blanc.