WHITE ORYX 289 



generally (exclusive of Brehm's Tierleben) will be found statements to 

 the effect that the white oryx, together with the addax and the bubal 

 hartebeest, ranges into Syria, or into Syria and Arabia. In some 

 cases, indeed, it is true that a certain degree of qualification is attached 

 to these statements, but in other instances, as in Trouessart's Catalogus 

 Mammalium, they are made without any reservation whatever. In 

 the case of the present species there may have been some confusion 

 between the white oryx and the Beatrix oryx {Oryx beatrix) of Arabia, 



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Fig. 61.— Head of White Oryx. 



to which latter some writers transfer the name leucoryx. These state- 

 ments appear to be at least very largely traceable to the late Canon 

 Tristram, who in his Natural History of the Bible and other works 

 included all three species in the Syrio-Arabian fauna. 



As regards the white oryx, Canon Tristram states that although it 

 is still found on the confines of the Holy Land, he never obtained a 

 specimen, but that he had been quite near enough to identify it by its 

 horns. There can, however, be little doubt that the animal he really 

 saw was the Beatrix or Arabian oryx ; and, so far as the present writer 

 can ascertain, the white oryx does not apparently occur anywhere to 

 the eastward of the Nile. For further information on this subject 



U 



