l6o NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



flats, "which," he says, "would appear indebted for 

 their nomenclature to the double fact of possessing 

 within their wide limits neither a solitary antelope of 

 the species referred to, nor one single square rood 

 of level land!" On January 25, 1828, Dr. Von 

 Horstock obtained a pair of blesbok at Uitenhage, 

 and in October, 1833, a male at the same place 

 these specimens are now at Leyden. 



In 1844 Gordon Gumming noted the gradual 

 disappearance of the blesbok, observing that "to the 

 south a few small herds are still to be found within 

 the Colony ;" its headquarters were to the north of 

 the Vaal, in the sour veldt to the west of the 

 Witteberg Mountains. In 1861 it lingered in 

 considerable numbers on the north-eastern border of 

 Cape Colony, while as late as 1873 Holub found 

 great herds near Mafeking. In 1892, however, 

 these antelopes were practically extinct in Southern 

 Bechuanaland ; the progress of civilisation and 

 especially the ruthless system of hide-hunting 

 pursued for years by the trek Boers and their sons 

 had thinned down the once swarming blesbok to a 

 mere remnant. Indeed in 1894 it seemed but too 

 likely that the blesbok would soon share the fate of 

 dodo and great auk ; happily some few troops existed 

 on fenced farms, where leave was necessary to shoot 

 them. Sero sapiunt Phryges. The blesbok has now 

 been taken under Government protection ; and it 

 would seem that the pendulum is swinging back 



