1 88 Game of Europe, W. & N. Asia & America 



century this curious species was totally unrepresented in the Zoological 

 Gardens. 



In 1900, however, the Duke of Bedford purchased a small herd of 

 saigas, hut by March 1901 only a solitary survivor was alive in the park 

 at Woburn Ahbey. One member of this herd — a male — which died towards 

 the end of 1900, is now mounted and exhibited in the British Museum, 

 and although by no means of large size, is the first specimen in that 

 collection which has shown the true form of the muzzle and nose. It is 

 from this specimen that the figure of the head in the plate is drawn. 



The peculiar conformation of the muzzle and nostrils, the latter of 

 which are tubular and directed downwards, serves to distinguish the saiga 

 from all other kinds of antelope ; the only one which makes any approxi- 

 mation (and that a very remote one) to it in this respect being the chiru of 

 Tibet, a description of which is given in Great and Small Game of India, 

 Burma, and Tibet. Nothing is known with regard to the object ot this 

 very peculiar departure from the ordinary antilopine type ot structure. 



In one of the two volumes on Big Game Shooting in the " Badminton 

 Library," Mr. R. A. Sterndale, who derived his information from the 

 Russian naturalist Pallas, is quoted as stating that the inflated nostrils of 

 the saiga are so much lengthened as to necessitate the animal's walking 

 backwards when it teeds. And the sportsman is accordingly advised to 

 take up his position in the rear of a herd should he desire the members of 

 the same to advance in his direction as they teed, although it is added 

 he may possibly find that nature has provided the animal with means of 

 twitching its nose out of the way to obviate so uncomtortable a method of 

 grazing. The saigas at Woburn Abbey show no tendency to feed in the 

 manner indicated, but when grazing advance steadily torwards in the 

 ordinary fashion. Still it is a little difficult to imagine how it is that 

 the nose is not in the way when the animal is grazing on short herbage. 



The saiga is a near relative of the gazelles, the blackbuck, and the 



