BUSHBUCKS, KOODOOS, AND ELANDS 471 



ticated ; they would give excellent food ; they could be used 

 as draught-animals; and lack of water and the dire fly- 

 borne cattle diseases of Africa would have no terror for them. 

 They would be a great addition to the world's stock of 

 domestic animals. 



Where we came across eland they were drinking every 

 twenty-four hours. But there seems to be no reason to 

 doubt the fact that in certain desert regions eland, like 

 giraffe and oryx, go many months without water. How this 

 is possible for so huge and fat a beast, in a climate of such 

 intolerable dryness and heat, we cannot imagine. No prob- 

 lem is better worth the study of competent field naturalists. 



The eland, like the roan- antelope, and the full-grown 

 buck Grant gazelle, possesses a coat which harmonizes 

 well with the general hue of the landscape in which it dwells. 

 It lacks the bold face markings of the roan, and the face 

 markings and body stripes of the oryx, and therefore, in 

 spite of its size, is perhaps a trifle less conspicuous than either. 

 The thin stripes on its coat have not the slightest effect in 

 either concealing or revealing it; seen sidewise, its body is 

 neither more nor less conspicuous than the unstriped body 

 of a roan antelope. On a bare plain or when coming to 

 water all these and all other big antelope are conspicuous. 

 In gray, dry thorn scrub the eland is sometimes hard to make 

 out from a distance, if it is not switching its tail. But, as a 

 matter of fact, it rarely stands still for any length of time 

 without switching its tail; the only elands we ever saw in 

 what might be called forest, revealed themselves to us when a 

 hundred yards off by the switching of their tails. We doubt 

 whether the eland's color is of even the smallest use to it as 

 against its natural foes. As wild dogs always hunt purely by 



