NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA 



example of the strange discontinuous distribution 

 for which the fauna of Africa is remarkable. The 

 Roan Antelope was not discovered till in 1801 Sir 

 John Barrow's party journeyed north as far as 

 Bechuanaland — thus, between the province of Swel- 

 lendam in the south-west and Bechuanaland in the 

 north intervened an enormous tract of territory 

 in which neither Roan nor Blaauwbok nor any other 

 member of their special group (the hippotragine 

 antelopes) occurred at all. In Africa to-day the 

 naturalist finds similar gaps in distribution in the 

 family of oryx antelopes and also among gazelles. 



" From the scanty field-notes available it appears 

 that the Blaauwbok wandered singly or in small 

 troops over the open veldt, probably in company 

 of Springbok : indeed, Le Vaillant records that it 

 was shortly after observing a herd of the latter 

 animals that in December 1781 his attendant shot 

 a Blaauwbok in the Valley of Soete Melk. His 

 account of the affair is most interesting reading, 

 and bears internal evidence of accuracy. The 

 quarry when first seen was lying down : it was 

 probably resting from the heat, for Le Vaillant 

 says that when it stood up soon afterwards he at 

 first mistook it for a white horse, till he saw the 

 horns : this account being curiously corroborated 

 by the late F. C. Selous, who, in writing of the 

 allied Roan Antelope, says, ' when standing in an 

 open plain, with the sun shining on them, they 

 often look almost white, which accounts for the 



100 



