3M RECORDS OF BIG GAME 



COMMON ELAND (Taurotragus oryx). 



Doo of the Masaras. Mpofu of Swahili. 



Ee-pofo of the Makalakas. Mpofu in Barotsiland. 

 Eland of the Dutch and English. Mpofu in Ngamiland. 



Impofo of the Amandebele. Oo-schefo of the Macubas. 



Insefo of the Masubias and Pofo of the Bechuanas. 



Batongas. Msongo in the Chilala and Chibisa 



Mofo of the Mashonas. countries. 

 Moju of the Gallas. 



Eland, which are the largest of all antelopes, resemble the bongo 

 in the presence of horns in both sexes ; these forming a close spiral 

 like a screw, with an upward and outward direction. Female horns 

 are more slender than those of the bulls. They likewise resemble the 

 bongo in possessing a long, tufted, ox-like tail, but have a distinct 

 dewlap. 



Bulls of the common eland stand from 5 feet 9 inches to as much 

 as 6|- feet at the shoulder. They have a large tuft of brown hair on 

 the forehead, and the horns are of moderate length and stoutness. The 

 typical race (T. oryx typicus), which formerly extended from the Cape 

 nearly to the Zambesi, has a uniformly tawny skin, without transverse 

 white stripes or a dark brown band above the knees ; and appears to 

 be the largest form. Apparently somewhere in Rhodesia a dark brown 

 band is assumed by immature bulls. And as we go northward towards 

 the Zambesi, and thence no.rth and east into the heart of the continent, 

 the bulls have not only this dark leg-band, but the body in both sexes 

 is marked by fine vertical white lines. As this striped variety was 

 discovered by Livingstone and his companions, it has been appropriately 

 named T. oryx livingstonianus. Westward the species ranges into 

 Angola. 



Throughout Southern Africa, largely owing to the skin-hunters, 

 eland are now becoming exceedingly scarce ; and they have already 

 more or less completely disappeared from Cape Colony, Natal, the 

 Orange River Colony, Griqualand West, and the Transvaal. In the 

 northern Kalahari, where they subsist for a great part of the year with- 

 out water, large herds are still to be met with. No species of large 

 game is more easily approached than eland, and, as a rule, none succumbs 

 more speedily to the bullet. Occasionally female eland develop horns 

 in which the spiral is almost obsolete and the length exaggerated ; these 

 have been supposed to indicate a distinct species {Antilope triangularis}. 



