Game Animals of India, etc. 



subsequently by the French naturalist Buffon the name 

 antelope was applied to the present species ; and 

 although, both in its original form and as the Latinised 

 yintilope^ the term has been extended so as to include all 

 the ruminants commonly known as antelopes, yet it is 

 to the Indian blackbuck that it properly belongs, and it 

 is to that species alone that the scientific title Antilope 

 is now restricted. Properly, therefore, the blackbuck 

 ought to be known as the antelope, although, according 

 to present usage, if employed at all, the latter name 

 must be qualified by the prefix Indian. 



Although so common, the blackbuck is one of the 

 most graceful of all antelopes ; and its elegant, spirally 

 twisted black horns have long been in use in the courts 

 of Indian rajas as handles to the chowris, or yak-tail 

 fly-whisks. It is one of the few antelopes in which the 

 male diflfers markedly from the female in colour ; the 

 others being the nilgai and certain kinds of African 

 bushbucks and kobs. The black livery assumed by 

 old bucks of this species is indeed a specialised feature ; 

 fawn being the original colour of all antelopes of this 

 group. In addition to being the sole representative of 

 the genus Antilope (in its restricted sense), the black- 

 buck is likewise the type of a large group, or sub- 

 family, of antelopes which includes, among others, the 

 saiga of the Russian steppes, the Tibetan chiru, the 

 gazelles, and the African springbuck and impala. All 

 the members of this group are small or medium-sized 

 antelopes, generally of graceful and slender build, 

 always with narrow, hairy, sheep-like muzzles, usually 

 with more or less short tails, and invariably with 

 narrow, high-crowned cheek-teeth resembling those of 

 sheep. With the exception of the majority of the 

 gazelles and the springbuck, horns are normally 

 developed in the bucks alone. From the gazelles (as 

 indeed from all other representatives of the group), the 

 blackbuck is sharply differentiated by the beautiful 

 spiral horns of the bucks and the sable coat donned by 



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