650 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



Northern Red Hartebeest. Rooi Hartebeest (Boer) 



ALCELAPHUS CAAMA SELBORNEI (Lydekker) 



Bubalis caama selbornei Lydekker, Abstr. Proc. Zool. Soc. London, no. 119, p. 

 19, 1913. ("The Transvaal" (loc. cit.) ; "in the neighbourhood of Kimber- 

 ley" (Lydekker, 1913d, p. 819); "Kimberley Game Farm," Griqualand 

 West, "the herd there having apparently been imported from the Trans- 

 vaal" (Lydekker and Elaine, 1914, vol. 2, p. 27) (cj. Shortridge, 1934, vol. 2, 

 p. 451).) 



FIGS.: A. Smith, 1849, pi. 30; Lydekker, 1913d, fig. 135; Lydekker and Elaine, 

 1914, vol. 2, p. 26, fig. 4; Shortridge, 1934, vol. 2, pis. opp. pp. 449, 450, 454. 



Although virtually or wholly exterminated in its former haunts in 

 the Transvaal, Orange Free State, and Cape Province, this sub- 

 species seems to survive in fair numbers in the Kalahari Desert 

 region of the Bechuanaland Protectorate and in the eastern parts of 

 South- West Africa. 



It is distinguished from A. c. caama as follows: "General colour 

 yellowish fawn; face-blaze mingled with tawny, stopping short of 

 horns and muzzle, and interrupted by a long interval in region of 

 eyes; limb-markings mingled with tawny, interrupted above knees, 

 on which they form a cap, and represented by a small patch on front 

 of shanks" (Lydekker, 1913c?, p. 821). These alleged subspecific 

 characters "seem to be abnormal or due to immaturity, as other heads 

 from the Kimberley herd show full development of the face-blaze" 

 (Lydekker and Elaine, 1914, vol. 2, p. 27). The validity of this 

 subspecies is denied by Capt. Guy Dollman (in litt., 1936) . 



If it can be accepted provisionally, its original range may be said 

 to have corresponded roughly to the Kalahari Arid District of 

 Bowen (1933, pp. 256, 259) : i. e., from the northern and northwestern 

 parts of Cape Province north to the Lake Ngami region, and from 

 the western Transvaal and western Orange Free State to the 

 eastern parts of South- West Africa. 



About 1835 "the Hartebeest had retreated still further into the 

 interior" of Cape Province. But it was still met with on the plains 

 beyond the Orange River in immense herds. In 1881 F. C. Selous 

 reported it fairly plentiful in Griqualand West; found all along the 

 eastern border of the Kalahari; plentiful about salt-pans between 

 the Botletlie River and the road from Bamangwato to the Zambesi ; 

 but not known farther north. (Sclater and Thomas, 1894, vol. 1, 

 pp. 35-37.) 



By the close of the nineteenth century the Cape Hartebeest was 

 found, south of the Orange River, only "in the parched deserts of 

 the Bushmanland country, in the far north-west of the old colonial 

 limits. Here a few troops are now and again to be encountered. . . . 



"These animals are to be found in troops ranging from a dozen 

 to fifty. In recent years I have seen troops of eighteen or so in 



