660 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



General color dark brown or blackish; tufts of long hairs on 

 muzzle, throat, and between forelegs black; mane upright, longer 

 middle hairs black, shorter outer hairs yellowish white ; tail reaching 

 nearly to ground, whitish, except for dark brown base. Horns ex- 

 panded at base, directed at first downward and forward, but finally 

 curving upward; record length on front curve, 30| inches. Height at 

 shoulder, 46 inches. Females much smaller. (Sclater and Thomas, 

 1895, vol. 1, p. 112; W. L. Sclater, 1900, vol. 1, pp. 148-150; Ward, 

 1935, p. 78.) 



Selous (1914, pp. 53-54) writes: 



This animal was once very abundant on all the open plains and karroos 

 of the Cape Colony from Cape Agulhas to the Orange River, and in all the 

 open grass lands of the Orange Free State, and the high veld of the Southern 

 and Western Transvaal, sometimes ranging beyond the south-western border 

 of that territory into Southern Bechuanaland. I met with them there myself 

 both in 1872 and 1880. 



By 1871 . . . black wildebeests had already been exterminated in every 

 part of the Cape Colony with the exception of the district of Beaufort West, 

 where they lingered on for some years longer. But at that time they were 

 still to be seen in great herds in many parts of the Orange Free State and 

 the Transvaal. In 1875 I saw very considerable numbers of these animals 

 between Potchefstroom in the Transvaal and Harrismith in the Orange Free 

 State, and again in 1876 I met with a good many in the Western Transvaal 

 near the Hartz River. But at this time they were being shot down in every 

 part of their range at a terribly rapid rate merely for the value of their 

 hides, and I doubt if there was a single black wildebeest left alive in any 

 part of the Transvaal at the end of the year 1885. By that date the species 

 would no doubt have already become absolutely extinct had it not been 

 for the public spirit of two Boer farmers of the Orange Free State Messrs 

 Du Plessis and Terblanc who carefully protected the poor remnants of the 

 once great herds of black wildebeests which were still running on their farms. 

 [There were about 300 of the animals on each of the two farms,] Mr F. E. 

 Blaauw . . . has also introduced some black wildebeests into Holland, where 

 they have thriven exceedingly well on his estate near Amsterdam. 



Harris (1839, p. 375) refers to the species as "abundant on the 

 plains south of the Vaal River." 

 Bryden (1899, pp. 207-213) gives the following account: 



The black wildebeest is in its behaviour one of the oddest, most capricious, 

 and most fantastic of all wild creatures. ... Its sudden and fantastic antics 

 and capers are always a source of wonderment to the onlooker. . . . 



If it had not been for a devastating disease known as the "brand-sickte," 

 or burning sickness, which periodically thinned the herds of these and other 

 game, their numbers would have been far too many even for that vast country 

 [Cape Colony] to have supported. . . . Down to the year 1850 an immense 

 amount of slaughter had been performed by the Dutch hunters and farmers 

 for something like eighty or a hundred years among these and other crea- 

 tures. . . . The range of this wildebeest never seems to have extended east- 

 ward in the Cape Colony beyond the Kei River. . . . 



