Heads and Horns 17 



and a neck with the lines of a hison. The hoofs vary in their proportions, from 

 the tiny, compact legs of the Gazelles to the hroad, caribou-like sand-shoe of 

 the desert-dwelling Addax. 



But it is in the head weapons and ornaments of the antelopes that we find 

 the greatest diversity. In fashioning these the ingenuity of Nature seems to 

 have run riot. In glancing over the horns of the antelopes as a whole, it is dif- 

 ficult to imagine how a greater number of variations could have been produced 

 in the one hundred and thirty-three species found within the group of ante- 

 lopes. Starting soberly with the tiny spike of the Duiker, like the terminal half 

 of a skewer, straight and smooth, straightway there begins, in the Gazelles, a 

 wild revel of annulations, and curves, bends, twists, and spirals that soon be- 

 comes fairly bewildering. In our effort to pick out types, and classify, we note 

 the smooth-and-twisted horns of the Harnessed Antelopes and Elands, the 

 slender-and-ringed horns of the Gazelles, the thick and grotesquely bent horns 

 of the Hartebeests, the long, straight, half-ringed horns of the Gemsbok, the 

 heavily ringed and semicircular leopard-stabbers of the Sable Antelope, and the 

 grand spirals of the Kudu, most beautiful and most imposing of all. 



It is an undeniable fact and there is no good purpose to be served either 

 in ignoring or denying it that in America to-day there are probably not more 

 than five hundred persons who have had a fair opportunity to know the extent, 

 the diversity, and inherent zoological interest of the antelopes of Africa, say- 

 ing nothing of the Asiatic species. And is it not a pity that to the average 

 American greedy for knowledge of all beautiful or queer things, both in 

 nature and in art these splendid masterpieces of Nature's handiwork 

 should be almost as obscure and unknown as the inhabitants of Mars. To-day 

 the partnership of steam and steel have brought Africa almost to our door. 

 Trains de luxe run to Khartum and Victoria Falls. The English are striving 

 hard to preserve from senseless slaughter the splendid mammalian fauna that 

 still remains in East Central Africa; and it is high time for all persons who feel 

 an interest in the wild creatures still surviving on this gun-cursed globe to 

 take note of the African antelopes. 



Regarding the horns of antelopes to be seen in the "nucleus collection," it 

 is .unnecessary to go far into particulars. The thirty-five species which make 

 up this series have been carefully chosen to illustrate, first of all, the different 

 genera, and after that the most noteworthy and characteristic species. If we 

 begin with the largest and most conspicuous species, our first specimen must 

 represent the Eland, giant of antelopes. Its horns are massive, smooth, and 



