132 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



First discovered in 1832 by Dr. Riippell of 

 Frankfort, and described and figured by him in 1835, 

 the beisa remained for a long time comparatively 

 unknown. 1 Even in 1857 Dr. J. E. Gray remarked 

 that "the O. Biessa of Riippell" appeared to be "only 

 a small variety of O. gaze Ha " (the gemsbok or Cape 

 oryx), and compared it with the dwarf kudu which, 

 discovered by Sir Cornwallis Harris in Abyssinia, 

 was only half the size of the kudu of the Cape. The 

 beisa (and the lesser kudu also for that matter) is now 

 of course recognised as a valid species distinct 

 enough from any other ; but material for study long 

 continued rare, and as late as 1874 only one specimen 

 seems to have been received alive into Europe. 



On May 28, 1874, a male specimen presented by 

 Admiral Arthur Cumming of H.M.S. " Glasgow " to 

 the Zoological Society arrived at its destination ; a 

 lantern photograph of this individual was afterwards 

 employed by the writer in pleading the cause of the 

 vanishing fauna of Africa. 2 In the summer of 1874 

 the French Vice-Consul at Aden sent a specimen to 

 the Jardin des Plantes at Paris. In 1875 the 

 Sultan of Zanzibar presented to the Zoological 

 Society a female, whose portrait afterwards appeared 

 in the Garden Guide ; thus the Zoological Society 



1. The horns of this antelope were known as early as 1811 ; in which 

 year Mr. Salt, the Abyssinian traveller, presented a pair to the Royal 

 College of Surgeons' Museum. 



2. Renshaw : "The Vanishing African Fauna." Lecture before the 

 Selborne Society, 1899. The beisa is seen with its head down as if feeding, 

 and appears to be in excellent condition. 



