146 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



On Mr. Cross retiring from business about 1843, the 

 antelopes were transferred by him to his brother- 

 in-law, Mr. Herring, from whom the persevering 

 Lord Derby eventually purchased them for ^114. 

 Lord Derby thus had the only living pair of leucoryx 

 in England. Two calves were bred, though neither 

 lived ; the first was sent to the British Museum. 

 The second was born dead about June 19, 1845 ; 

 the mother died in 1846, having then been about 

 eleven years in England. The two adult animals 

 and one of their calves were figured by Waterhouse 

 Hawkins in the " Gleanings from the Menagerie and 

 Aviary at Knowsley Hall," published in 1850; the 

 second leucoryx calf and one of the parents is 

 still preserved in the Derby Museum at Liverpool. 1 

 On July 2, 1851, Lord Derby died, and his unrivalled 

 collection was sold by auction in the following 

 October by Mr. J. C. Stevens. The sale lasted a 

 week and attracted many naturalists; lot 73 consisted 

 of a pair of leucoryx an Abyssinian male and a 

 Nubian female which was selected by the Zoological 

 Society in virtue of Lord Derby's bequest. Calves 

 of this pair or their descendants were bred by the 

 Society in 1852, 1853, 1860, and i864. 2 



In captivity the leucoryx becomes partly tame, and 



1. As late as 1900 the British Museum possessed no perfect example 

 of the leucoryx. A good, fresh male specimen from Kordofan was 

 however presented by Capt. Dunn, R.A.M.C., in 1903. 



2. The first of these Zoo youngsters was figured in a well-known 

 natural history as "the first leucoryx born out of Africa." The calf is 

 shown at apparently some five weeks old ; it throve well and soon was 

 almost as tall a* its parents. 



