724 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



Roberts (1937, pp. 776-777) writes: 



The eland was at one time plentiful all over the Union, and always a 

 favourite with the hunter, owing to its size, fattiness and tender quality of 

 the meat, the hide also being better than that of domestic cattle. No wonder 

 then that it rapidly disappeared with the advance of settlement. Attempts 

 were made by many early settlers to keep it on their farms, but it was either 

 shot off by poachers, or when restless during droughts migrated elsewhere. 

 Ordinary fences are of little avail to keep it within bounds, as its tough hide 

 enables it to push through ordinary wire fences without much damage to 

 itself, and its ability to leap over obstacles six feet high makes it difficult to 

 keep in confinement. ... A few occur in the Kruger National Park as strays 

 from Southern Rhodesia and Portuguese South-East Africa, and a fair num- 

 ber are said to occur in the Kalahari Gemsbok Park. . . . The advantages 

 of protecting this, the largest of the antelopes, both for economic and tech- 

 nical scientific reasons must be obvious. 



"As the Eland breeds well in captivity, and is as a rule of a mild 

 docile nature, it is mysterious why no attempt was made by our 

 earlier settlers to domesticate this fine animal, even if only as a 

 fresh item for the bill of fare. The Elands in the National Zoolog- 

 ical Gardens breed regularly every year." (Haagner, 1920, p. 224.) 



[The remaining subspecies of this Eland have survived in much 

 better numbers than the one of South Africa, and require only 

 brief mention. 



The MASHONA ELAND (Taurotragus oryx selousi Lydekker 1 ) 

 ranges over Southern Rhodesia, between the Zambesi and the Lim- 

 popo, and apparently the adjacent parts of Portuguese East Africa. 

 According to the Warden of the Wankie Game Reserve (in litt., 

 March, 1937), Elands are common in most districts of Southern 

 Rhodesia and have held their own, despite the large numbers shot 

 in tsetse fly operations and despite the severe effects of drought. 



The name LIVINGSTONE'S ELAND T. o. livingstonii (P. L. Scla- 

 ter) 2 may be applied for the present to the Eland of South-West 

 Africa, the northern part of the Bechuanaland Protectorate, Angola, 

 Northern Rhodesia, Nyasaland, and the southern part of the 

 Belgian Congo. Apparently it still occurs in fair numbers over a 

 large part of this range. Pitman (1934, p. 331) estimates the number 

 in Northern Rhodesia (excluding Barotse) at 30,000. In the Bel- 

 gian Congo, however, it has been decimated by both Europeans and 

 natives, despite total legal protection (A. J. Jobaert, in litt., Novem- 

 ber 10, 1936) . 



1 Taurotrayus oryx selousi Lydekker, Ward's Records of Big Game, ed. 6, 

 p. 328, 1910. (Typified by two heads from the "Mashuna country," Southern 

 Rhodesia, figured by Selous, A Hunter's Wanderings in Africa, pi. 1, figs. 1, 3, 

 1890.) 



2 Oreas livingstonii P. L. Sclater, Proc. Zool. Soc. London 1864, p. 105, 1864. 

 (Near Sekhosi, on the Zambesi, about 115 miles northwest of Victoria Falls, 

 Northern Rhodesia; cf. Harper, 1940, p. 331.) 



