256 NATURE AND SPORT IN SOUTH AFRICA 



ant-heap. The remaining bull wildebeest found him 

 out, attacked him fiercely, and dragged him about 

 with its sharp horns. The man was found dead 

 subsequently, with a terrible wound near the heart, 

 and his clothes torn from his body. 



Neither this antelope, nor its cousin, the blue 

 wildebeest (brindled gnu), are to be treated lightly 

 at close quarters or when wounded. 



It is a far cry from the gnu of hot South Africa to 

 the musk-ox of the frozen north, but, so far as I can 

 remember, the horns of the musk-ox — if somewhat 

 smaller — resemble the horns of this gnu more closely 

 than those of any other quadruped 



The flesh of the white-tailed gnu is neither game- 

 like nor attractive, except in the quite young calf 

 Many people have compared it to poor beef The 

 flesh of the blue wildebeest is, to my thinking, very 

 similar, and in the hunting veldt any antelope, almost, 

 is preferable as a source of food-supply. 



Upon its own primeval karroos the behaviour of 

 this gnu was always thought ludicrous and grotesque; 

 every traveller writes with amazement and mirth of 

 its extraordinary antics. "Wheeling and prancing 

 in every direction," says Cornwallis Harris, " his 

 shaggy and bearded head arched between his slender 

 and muscular legs, and his long white tail streaming 

 in the wind, this ever wary animal has at once a 

 ferocious and ludicrous appearance." 



