92 RECORDS OF BIG GAME 
WHITE-TAILED GNU (Connochetes gnu). 
The White-tailed Gnu, or, as it is invariably called in South Africa, 
the Black Wildebeeste, is assuredly one of the most extravagant of 
nature’s creations. All travellers and hunters, from the time of 
Sparrman (1772) downwards, have born testimony to the grotesque 
and laughable antics of this animal. Although classed by naturalists 
as a true antelope, the Black Wildebeeste has, to the average eye, some- 
thing of the buffalo, something of the pony, in its outward appearance. 
Its shaggy and tufted head, wild and sinister eye, hooked horns, bushy 
upstanding mane, long white tail, brown body-colouring, and beautifully 
slender yet muscular limbs, and above all its extraordinary activity and 
restlessness, and the mad pranks in which it indulges, render it easily 
distinguishable from its cousin, the brindled gnu. It has a fierce and 
treacherous disposition. Formerly to be found from the Great Karroo 
of Cape Colony to the Vaal River in hundreds of thousands, the White- 
tailed Gnu has dwindled in numbers to some six or seven hundred head, 
which are now preserved by Dutch farmers in the Orange Free State. 
HEIGHT at shoulder about 46 inches. 
Distribution —Probably extinct in a wild state, but preserved 
in many parts of South Africa. 
