56 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



and by the frontlet above referred to : no skull 

 being known to exist in any museum, nor does 

 there seem to be any description of one in the 

 whole of scientific literature, the acquisition of 

 such a desideratum being apparently considered 

 about as likely as that of the living animal itself! 

 Nevertheless, a blaauwbok skull unfortunately 

 imperfect has for many years been preserved 

 in the Royal College of Surgeons' Museum in 

 Lincoln's Inn Fields. A careful comparison of 

 this skull, with that of a roan antelope, has 

 convinced me that it is genuine. The horns, like 

 those in the Natural History Museum, bear 

 twenty annulations, and are relatively long and 

 slender. They appear to be less curved, however, 

 than those in the National Collection : and since 

 the skull is comparatively smooth with little 

 development on bony ridges for the attachment 

 of muscles, it seems probable that the animal was 

 a female. There can be no question of the 

 maturity of the animal, for between the lowest 

 ring and the true base of the horn there is a 

 considerable portion (about one-sixth of the total 

 length) without rings, but ornamented with a 

 great number of indefinite wavy furrows : had the 

 horns been still growing, the annulations would 

 have continued right down to the base. The 

 skull, therefore, cannot be that of an immature 

 roan, the only other species with which it could 



