THE BLESBOK ANTELOPE 163 



vague methods of labelling museum specimens 

 formerly in vogue "Caffraria," or even " South 

 Africa," being frequently considered quite sufficient 

 did not help in localising the bontebok. Sparrman, 

 however, recorded it from the Bot River in Caledon 

 (1785) ; Sir John Barrow noted its reduced numbers 

 in 1 80 1 ; Smuts about 1832 recorded it from the 

 Breede River in S wellendam. 1 So rare was the species 

 becoming that, by 1836, a fine of 500 rix dollars 

 ($7 ios.) was imposed by the Government on 

 any person shooting one without permission. Sir 

 Cornwallis Harris, having obtained a permit to shoot 

 some four bontebok, noted about three hundred 

 individuals on the estate of Field Commandant 

 Laurens at that time. " Still found in Zoetendals 

 Vley," he writes in his book on South Africa; and, 

 indeed, this locality near Cape Agulhas appears to 

 be the only district in which these scarce antelopes 

 now occur. That any remain at all, after so many 

 years, is due to the farsighted policy of certain 

 Dutch gentlemen. In 1864, Mr. Alexander van 

 Byl enclosed his immense farm of 6,000 acres 

 at Nachtwacht, and drove nearly all the surviving 

 bontebok some thirty head into the enclosure, 



1. Harris was the first to distinguish between bontebok and blesbok, 

 though Hamilton Smith observed in 1826, regarding the white-faced 

 antelope, " there is a variety which we have seen brought from the 

 Boochwaana country, in which the white colour on the buttocks is not 

 observable, but the white legs remain equally pure as in the others." 

 The "white-faced antelope " would thus seem to be the bontebok, at that 

 time confused with the true cdbifrons or blesbok; the variety "from the 

 Boochwana country " being the blesbok of Bechuanaland. 



