THE BLUE WILDEBEEST 8/ 



rats are copied more remotely by the marsupial 

 jerboa-mouse and by the rat kangaroos. 



There exists also a still more remarkable class 

 of resemblances, being almost a caricature of the 

 first; for in the second series the likenesses are 

 more or less grotesque, and instead of sustaining 

 a semblance of any one animal, appear rather to 

 form a bizarre combination of several. Thus the 

 eupleres of Madagascar, with its minute teeth, 

 snipy jaws, and bushy tail, is an aberrant civet 

 showing insectivorous characters : the saiga with 

 its semi-translucent horns, its tapir-like proboscis, 

 and its ovine coat shed annually in patches is 

 hardly recognisable as an antelope : the aard vark 

 combines the snout of a pig and the tongue of an 

 anteater with the ears of a rabbit and the burrow- 

 ing claws of an armadillo, whilst the ornitho- 

 rhynchus of Australia, duck-billed and web-footed, 

 with the fur of a mole and the spurs of a fighting- 

 cock — being hatched to begin with from a leathery 

 egg like that of a tortoise— is almost mammal, 

 bird, and reptile all in one. 



Perhaps the most singular of these nondescript 

 forms is the blue wildebeest, or brindled gnu 

 (Connochaetes taztrinus), of South and East Africa 

 — blaauw wildebeeste of the Boers — kokoon of 

 the Bechuanas — ^imbutuma of the Kaffirs — a large 

 antelope standing over four feet high at the 



