260 NATURE AND SPORT IN SOUTH AFRICA 



am not inclined to be very sanguine of the result, 

 glad as I should be to see this curious beast saved 

 from the miserable fate of the quagga. 



This gnu is restless, gregarious, seldom remaining 

 long in one place, and accustomed to migrating in 

 immense troops from pasture to pasture. As the 

 brindled gnu has always been found consorting with 

 the Burchell's zebra, so the white-tailed gnu was 

 seldom seen far away from the quagga ; troops of the 

 two species mingled together, and the ostrich was 

 found almost as often amongst them. I am not 

 aware that the white-tailed gnu and the brindled 

 gnu were ever found together ; their habitats seem 

 always to have been pretty sharply defined, and the 

 two species seldom invaded one another's borders. 

 The white-tailed gnu, although it has occasionally 

 figured in the Zoological Society's collection, had not 

 for some time been seen until 1893. Then to the 

 great pleasure of all interested in the South African 

 fauna — I may say of all naturalists — three excellent 

 and representative specimens were deposited there. 

 I paid several visits to these gnu, and watched them 

 often, and with the greatest interest. No one who 

 saw them could fail to remark the freakish and gro- 

 tesque habits of these most singular creatures. 

 Their sudden starts, capers, bounds, and antics, their 

 whimsical frights and passions (for they appear to 

 take alarm at nothing, to start at their own wild 



