694 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



the Nafud in the north-west the oryx are numerous and in this locality 

 alone is it feasible to hunt them. 



When the Bedawin are not in the neighbourhood the oryx can be found 

 for a certainty at the end of seven days' camel ride from the Hedjaz rail- 

 way, east of the Dead Sea. But should there be ample rain the Arabs move 

 far into the desert, and the oryx, no doubt, retreat farther away. ... I have 

 seen their tracks within a few hours of the railway south of Tebuk .... In 

 early spring, during a very dry season, I found the o^x numerous along 

 the western edge of the Nafud sand desert. [The sand dunes] were covered 

 with tracks, and I should say that they are their true refuge and feeding ground 

 for the greater portion of the year. ... I have come across them, too, in 

 quite broken country in the hills of Tbaik to the west of the Nafud. 



Hamilton (1918, pp. 283-284, pi.) mentions and figures two 

 specimens in captivity at Riyadh. "They come, I understand from 

 the Great Nefudh south-west of Nejd and are now somewhat rare 

 as it is not difficult to stalk them among the sand dunes. . . . One 

 curious superstition the Arabs hold about them is that eating their 

 flesh will expel a bullet which has lodged in a man's body even if 

 it has been embedded for years. ... As for their habitat I expect 

 they roam the whole Nefudh or sand deserts of Arabia. Sir Percy 

 Cox informed me that he had come across their tracks in the country 

 behind Muscat." 



Cheesman (1926, pp. 342, 367) writes: 



The Oryx owes its continued existence in Arabia to its ability to live in 

 places that are inaccessible to the badawin on account of their waterless 

 character. The hunters of the Oryx, indeed, have to depend on camels' milk, 

 and the extent of the journeys is limited to the time that their camels can 

 exist without water. . . . 



The home of this fast-diminishing species is to-day the uninhabited centre 

 of the Great Arabian Desert, to which they have been driven by the increas- 

 ing arms among the tribes. The Al Murra tribesmen, who roam as near the 

 centre as any Arabs, say they were plentiful many years ago in the deserts 

 around Jabrin in seasons of good rain, when they followed the growing vege- 

 tation. Now they are only to be found far to the south in the Great Desert, 

 more particularly in the neighbourhood of Najran. . . . 



It would be safe to assume that ... all those in the British Museum have 

 had their origin in the South Desert, with the exception of those killed by 

 D. Carruthers in Tebuk in the Northern Nafud. 



The following statement of Bodenheimer's (1935, pp. 115-116) 

 would appear to relate more properly to years gone by than to the 

 present period: "The Arabian Oryx ... is still common in the 

 Syrian and Arabian Deserts, whence it intrudes occasionally into 

 Transjordania." He adds that it was "probably more common in 

 the deserts of Transjordania and S. Palestine in earlier periods." 



According to Pocock (1935a, p. 464), Bertram Thomas "mentions 

 killing a specimen at Wadi Gudun in Nejd. 1 " It was this specimen 

 that was made the type of 0. I. latipes Pocock. 



1 This wadi is at "the southern margin of the Rub al Khali" (Carruthers, 1935, 

 p. 184, and map) . 



