THE BUBALINE ANTELOPE 



Colony down to the very seashore ; further north it 

 is replaced by other species of hartebeest 

 Lichtenstein's, Jackson's, Coke's, Swayne's, and so 

 forth until one reaches the tetel of Kordofan, and 

 the bubal of Algeria. 



Now in the sixteenth century Dr. Caius (well 

 known as the founder of Caius and Gonville College, 

 Cambridge) correctly described the bubal in his 

 contribution to Gesner's work, aptly styling the animal 

 boselaphus or " stag-ox." Buffon similarly described 

 the animal in his own Natural History, though without 

 figuring it. Dr. Allamand, however, thought fit to 

 add a picture to Buffon's description ; and unfortu- 

 nately delineated not the bubal but the caama, with 

 Buffon's original letterpress. To make matters 

 worse, Buffon, in publishing the sixth volume of 

 his Supplement, copied Allamand's figure of the 

 Cape hartebeest, and published it with a correct 

 representation of the bubaline species, quite ignorant 

 that each picture represented an entirely distinct 

 animal ! This comedy of errors was continued by 

 Gmelin ; but in 1819 Georges Cuvier separated the 

 two species, styling the Cape form Antilope caama, 

 and soundly basing his dictum on the series of skins 

 and skeletons of both animals then in the Paris 

 Museum. 1 



1. Seba's supposed figure of a bubal (plate 42, Tom L, fig. 4) likewise 

 represents the Cape hartebeest ; the error is the more singular as in his 

 day (1765) one might well suppose the caama far more difficult to obtain 

 than the bubal. 



