120 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



game animals have well-nigh been exterminated by 

 men powerless to create them ! 



The date of the discovery of the nilgai by 

 Europeans is unknown ; Mr. Ogilby, however, 

 supposed it to be identical with the hippelaphus of 

 Aristotle, and Alexander's troops may have met 

 with it in the Punjab in 326 325 B.C. Bernier, who 

 in 1664 travelled from Delhi to Cashmere with the 

 Mogul Aurengzeb, states that the king used to hunt 

 nilgai. The herd having been surrounded by an 

 army of hunters, the nets were gradually approxi- 

 mated until a space was enclosed, into which 

 Aurengzeb and his party entered, killing the terrified 

 quarry with spears and muskets. The king some- 

 times sent quarters of nilgai venison as presents to 

 his nobles, just as to-day the squire sends to his 

 friends gifts of hare and pheasant. 



Although the above details are interesting enough, 

 it is remarkable that the present species was first 

 accurately described, long after its discovery, not 

 from skin or skeleton, but from a captive specimen 

 living in London. The nilgai is par excellence a 

 menagerie beast, if not indeed the menagerie beast ; 

 its history is so intricately bound up with progress in 

 the art of keeping vivaria that the remainder of this 

 Essay will be devoted to outlining the subject, such 

 appearing by for the best method of dealing with this 

 antelope. To begin with, the original specimen was 

 a male, sent alive from Bengal, and was described 



