654 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



Agulhas to the territories now known as Bechuanaland and the Transvaal. 

 The gradual desiccation, however, of the Karroo in the south-western por- 

 tions of the Cape Colony ... no doubt caused the withdrawal of these 

 animals to the north and east from those parched and waterless plains. Those 

 individuals of the species, however, which had reached the neighbourhood 

 of Cape Agulhas, where there is plenty of water, would have had no reason to 

 move, and thus a portion of the race became isolated, and in course of time 

 differentiated, from the original stock. This isolated race of antelopes con- 

 fined within very narrow geographical limits on the plains bordering the 

 sea near Cape Agulhas . . . was first met with by the early Dutch settlers 

 at the Cape in the latter half of the seventeenth century, and named by 

 them "bonteboks" .... 



Had it not been for the protection which has long been afforded by the 

 Cape Government, there can be little doubt that the bontebok, owing to 

 the very small area of its range, would long since have disappeared .... Even 

 in spite of stringent laws, this dire calamity might have happened had it not 

 been for the action of Mr Alexander Van der Byl, who, in 1864, whilst 

 enclosing the extensive area known as Nachtwacht Farm, near Bredasdorp, 

 managed to drive something like three hundred bonteboks within the enclosed 

 space. There they have been carefully preserved and protected ever since, 

 and though they have not increased in number, it is said that they are not 

 decreasing. Another herd of bonteboks is preserved on a neighbouring farm 

 belonging to Dr. Albertyn .... In addition to these bonteboks now care- 

 fully preserved on enclosed farms, there are also still a few surviving on the 

 unenclosed plains, both in the neighbourhood of Bredasdorp and near the 

 village of Swellendam. It is doubtful . . . whether more than three hundred 

 bonteboks are in existence to-day. . . . No doubt, before the advent of 

 Europeans in South Africa, bonteboks once congregated in large droves, but 

 to-day they can only be seen in small herds of from half-a-dozen to twenty 

 or thirty individuals. 



"Formerly the bontebok was somewhat more widely spread 

 throughout the south-western corner of the Colony. Sparrman 

 [1785] mentioned seeing a herd near the Bot River in Caledon and 

 Smuts [1832] notes it from the Breede River in Swellendam." (W. 

 L. Sclater, 1900, vol. 1, p. 140.) 



"They are confined to ... the 'Strand Veldt' . . . bordered by 

 the sea on the south-west, south, and south-east, and by a range 

 of undulating country or low hills rising to the Caledon Ranges and 

 Zwart Bergen on the northern side" (E. L. Layard, Proc. Zool. Soc. 

 London 1871, p. 625, 1872). Curiously enough, in all the literature 

 there seems to be no definite, reliable record of the Bontebok ranging 

 north of this "Strand Veldt" even as far as the Little Karroo. 



The Bontebok reserve was proclaimed in July, 1931, and included 

 then only 17 animals. Now they have increased to 44. (Herbert 

 Lang, in litt., January 23, 1935.) 



In 1936 the number in the reserve was reported as 57 (C. W. Hob- 

 ley, in Hit., August 18, 1936). 



"The Magistrate at Bredasdorp . . . tells me the bontebok are 

 doing splendidly and multiplying fast." A person who shot one from 



