ORDER ARTIODACTYLA : EVEN-TOED UNGULATES 661 



The flesh of the black wildebeest is not by any means good eating. . . . 



The total number now existing in the whole of South Africa is probably 

 . . . well under 600 or 700 head. [The] Boers find that they can easily ob- 

 tain from rich men at Johannesburg and elsewhere 10 and more for the 

 privilege of shooting ... a single head of these rare animals. ... In the 

 old days in Cape Colony the frontier farmers shot black wildebeest and 

 quagga principally for the purpose of supplying their Hottentot herdsmen 

 and servants with a food supply, and thus saving their sheep and goats. . . . 

 They also shot these animals for their skins, which they required for ropes, 

 halters, sacks, riems, harness, whips, and other gear. Under this free-and-easy 

 system the game of Cape Colony soon began to vanish. But it remained 

 for the wasteful farmers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State to become 

 mere sordid skin-hunters, and to destroy millions of animals for the paltry 

 value of their hides. These hides were sent down country and shipped to 

 Europe. In forty years even the once apparently inexhaustible herds of the 

 Free State and Transvaal became shot out, and these countries are now all 

 but devoid of the noble game that once gave life and beauty and a perfectly 

 unique charm to many an otherwise dreary landscape. 



W. L. Sclater writes (1900, vol. 1, p. 152) : "The white-tailed gnu 

 forms the dexter supporter of the arms of the Colony of the Cape of 

 Good Hope . . . , and it would be a thousand pities if so character- 

 istic a form was allowed to become altogether extinct, as seems not 

 unlikely to happen." 



"It is at present only found in the Orange Free State (where herds 

 are, amongst other localities, still preserved in the Kroonstad and 

 Winburg districts) and in the South-Western Transvaal. ... In 

 May, 1918, ... we saw about 800 of these . . . creatures on a farm 

 near Marquard, in the Winburg district. They consorted in herds 

 of from fourteen to sixty individuals." (Haagner, 1920, pp. 168- 

 169.) 



"The species benefited greatly from the breaking down of fences 

 during the Boer War; the herds got mixed and the results of in- 

 breeding were cancelled. Now they are all enclosed again and their 

 continuance depends purely upon the fancy of the owners of the 

 farms. There is a small herd ... on the outskirts of Cape Town. 

 It numbers 7 at present." (E. L. Gill, in litt., December 13, 1932.) 



"Black wildebeest venison may frequently be seen in game shops 

 in Johannesburg and Pretoria" (Shortridge, 1934, vol.. 2, p. 463) . 



"Most of them are kept essentially for lucrative purposes, actual 

 protection is a subterfuge. On account of the sport they offer when 

 pursued on horseback, hunters are willing to pay during the open 

 season the high fees (five pounds) for every animal killed. I see 

 no possibility of definite protection except by buying one or more 

 of the most suitable farms." (Herbert Lang, in litt., January 23, 

 1935.) 



Roberts (1937, pp. 774-775) writes: 



So far, I believe, it has not been introduced into the only Government 

 game reserve in the Orange Free State, Somerville Estate, a defect that 



