274 NATURE AND SPORT IN SOUTH AFRICA 



heavy, ungainly shape. The general body-colouring 

 is of a dark purplish-brown, having a curious 

 bluish-lilac bloom upon the back, almost as if the 

 hair had been glazed. The face and forehead, the 

 belly, legs, and a large patch upon the rump are 

 snow-white ; and, contrasting, as they do, very oddly 

 with the dark brown coat, give to the animal that 

 strange piebald appearance upon which the old- 

 time Boers at once fastened for this antelope's 

 earliest name, a name that has been associated with 

 it for two hundred years. The horns are about 15 in. 

 long, annulated, and somewhat lyrate in shape. 



The bontebok is, undoubtedly, to be ranged with 

 those of the more powerful and determined of the 

 South African antelopes which are capable and ready 

 to defend themselves vigorously when wounded or at 

 bay. Thunberg, the famous Swedish botanist, who 

 travelled at the Cape as far back as 1773, notices 

 this feature. He says in his book of travels : " It is 

 always dangerous to come near one of these creatures 

 when shot, because, if he is not quite dead, he makes 

 use of his horns, and may put the huntsman in 

 danger of his life." And Mr. E. L. Layard, formerly 

 the curator of the Cape Town Museum, writing of 

 the Swellendam bonteboks in 1871, says: "If 

 wounded and approached they will charge des- 

 perately, and I have heard of a Hottentot being 

 killed by them thus." 



