NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



extended to the great Karroo Desert. The early 

 traveller, trekking though the blesbok country, saw 

 thousands upon thousands running in close-packed 

 ranks, their silvery muzzles lowered to the ground, 

 like hounds on scent ; his bivouac was enlivened by 

 the grunting and snorting of the buck as they fed 

 alongside the waggons ; rising early next morning 

 he beheld every little eminence alive with blesbok 

 and wildebeest. The blesbok roamed over the 

 sour veldt, cropping the harsh grass with relish, and 

 resorting to the sun-baked vleys to lick the 

 crystallized salt. Clouds of springbok were mingled 

 in their purple companies, running and trotting, 

 or leaping like shuttlecocks high in the air. Shaggy 

 troops of wildebeest wheeled and frolicked about the 

 wings of the advancing squadron, while the khoorhan 

 bustard ran and tumbled like a mountebank, and the 

 truculent wart-hog scampered off with tail absurdly 

 held upright. Wary and suspicious, blesbok were 

 usually difficult to approach ; when young ones 

 were about the animals became even more alert, 

 and quickly sought safety in flight, covering the 

 ground with a rapidity that left all pursuit far behind. 

 The blesbok seems to have been first discovered 

 on the high veldt of the Colesberg division of Cape 

 Colony the so-called " bontebok flats" perhaps by 

 the unknown farmer who (doubtless unaware of any 

 special interest attaching to his statement) noted 

 that the "bontebok" in the north of Cape Colony 



