9 i2 THE UNGULATES, OR HOOFED MAMMALS 



flight, while when wounded, I have found them unable to go far, and easy to finish; 

 and their flesh may be classed with that of the best of the choicer antelopes." 



The blesbok (B. albifrons) and the closely-allied bontebok (B. 

 bygargus} , which are represented in the right lower corner of the illus- 

 tration on p. 906, are smaller South-African antelopes, which are the last represent- 

 atives of the genus. In both species the horns are compressed and regularly lyrate, 

 with the rings strongly marked, and extending nearly to the tips; for a short dis- 

 tance they run almost parallel, and then curve backward. Their usual length is 

 about fifteen inches, but a pair of eighteen and one-fourth inches, is on record. Both 

 species are characterized by their brilliant purple-red color, and the broad white 

 "blaze" down the face, from which the blesbok takes its name. The bontebok 

 (the animal standing in front of the two on the right side of the illustration) is 

 distinguished by the white blaze on the face continuing without interruption right 

 up to the root of the horns, the white patch on the buttocks surrounding the tail, 

 and the white legs. On the other hand, in the blesbok (shown in the hind one of the 

 two animals standing on the right side of the cut) the blaze on the face is divided 

 by a transverse dark line just above the eyes; there is no white on the rump above 

 the tail, but a dark stripe runs down the outer side of the legs. In height the 

 blesbok stands about three feet two inches or rather more at the withers, but the 

 bontebok may reach from three feet two inches to three feet eleven inches. 



After mentioning that blesbok resemble the smaller springbok in 

 manners and habits, Gordon Cumming goes on to observe that they 

 differ from the latter "in the determined and invariable way in which they scour 

 the plains, right in the wind's eye, and also in the manner in which they carry their 

 noses close to the ground. Throughout the greater part of the year they are very 

 wary and difficult of approach, but more especially when the does have young ones. 

 At that season, when a herd is disturbed and takes away up the wind, every other 

 herd in view follows it, and the alarm extending for miles and miles down the wind, 

 to endless herds beyond the vision of the hunter,' a continued stream of blesbok may 

 often be seen scouring up wind for upward of an hour, and covering the landscape 

 as far as the eye can see. ' ' On one occasion when on the Vet river the same writer 

 states: "On my right and left the plain exhibited one purple mass of graceful 

 blesbok, which extended without a break as far as my eye could strain. The 

 depth of their vast legions covered a breadth of about six hundred yards." 



We may conclude this notice of the hartbeests and their allies by 

 Extinct 



Species mentioning that a member of the group occurs fossil in the Pliocene 



strata at the foot of the Himalayas, and it may be inferred from this 

 and the facts above mentioned that the essentially African groups of sable antelopes, 

 water bucks, and hartbeests, and probably also kudus, were once represented on the 

 plains of India. 



