ORDER ARTIODACTYLA : EVEN-TOED UNGULATES 645 



'The Bubal Antelope ... is now extinct. The last survivor, a 

 female, died in Paris in 1923." Another individual, that died in 

 Paris in 1916, had lived in captivity for almost 19 years. (Flower, 

 1931, pp. 211-212.) 



Cabrera (1932, pp. 336-339) gives the following account for 

 Morocco: 



The range includes the east central part of the country, at the 

 extreme eastern base of the Grand Atlas, in the region comprised 

 between the upper Muluya, the sources of the Guir, and the small 

 rivers which give rise to the Wadi Ziz. Thence it extends to the 

 south of Oran. 



It was recorded from Barbary as early as 1573 by Marmol, who 

 spoke of it as occurring in herds of one or two hundred. At that time 

 it ranged from the Atlantic coast of Morocco to Tunisia. 



Its complete disappearance, in a little more than three centuries, 

 from localities in Morocco where Marmol reported it in large herds, 

 is the more interesting because it relates to regions where European 

 civilization has penetrated only very recently. Since practically no 

 trustworthy traveler of the nineteenth century mentions the Bubal, 

 this seems to indicate that it disappeared from the more frequented 

 zones over a hundred years ago, to remain exiled in the interior of 

 the empire, then impenetrable. Bede (1926), after a careful inves- 

 tigation, records the killing of a Bubal in the region of Misur in 

 1925, and the extinction, about the same date, of the last examples 

 that lived in the territory of the Ulad-el-Hach. 



Though perhaps not completely gone, it is quite evident that the 

 Bubal has reached the verge of extinction, and it is probably too 

 late to adopt any measure for warding off that fate. 



Maydon reports (1933, p. 738) that careful inquiries in Algeria 

 and Tunisia have failed to reveal any trace of it. 



On the other hand, Joseph I. Touchette, American Vice Consul at 

 Algiers, writes us (in litt., March 28, 1933) that according to Prof. 

 L. G. Seurat, of the University of Algiers, the Bubal still exists in 

 very limited numbers in certain protected valleys south of the De- 

 partment of Oran. It is seen particularly between the Geryvillc 

 region and the Chott Tigri, whence it occasionally migrates to the 

 eastern Moroccan mountains. 



It is decidedly rare at present in Barbary, but half a century 

 ago it was widely spread on the high plateaus and on the hills at 

 the edge of the Sahara (Heim de Balsac, 1936, p. 101) . 



"It existed not very long ago (1870) in all the South Algerian and 

 Tunisian mountains. It prefers a rocky country and is not an animal 

 of the sandy desert as it has sometimes been wrongly described. 



