728 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



[In the Lado Enclave] they were found in herds of from ten to thirty or 

 forty individuals; the old bulls . . . were frequently solitary. . . . 



It is said that in the rainy season, when the grass is thick and tall, they 

 are often killed by lions, which are then able to get so close as to seize 

 them by the head. 



Brocklehurst writes (1931, pp. 46-48) : 



A few herds are scattered throughout the Mongalla and Bahr-el-Ghazal 

 Provinces and south-western Darfur. . . . 



They are generally found in herds of from fifteen to twenty-five, though 

 I have seen a herd of over forty. They are very local .... 



Eland are very susceptible to cattle plague and rinderpest, and between 

 the years 1923 and 1927 several herds were much depleted by these diseases. 



J. L. Clark (1931) encountered several herds in the vicinity of 

 York House and Amadi, and secured two specimens. At this time 

 "disease had greatly diminished the eland and in certain localities 

 had wiped them out completely." 



Tweedie (in Maydon, 1932, pp. 168-172) gives the following 

 account: 



In the Sudan his best-known haunts are : 



(1) The Jur country, a few miles east of Wau. 



(2) The old Lado enclave. 



(3) The western portion of the Bahr el Ghazal. 



(4) The Gell river, between Wau and Rumbek .... 



Now that the advance of civilization has made their habitat so much more 

 easily accessible, are they one of the fine beasts that are doomed? It is 

 not perhaps the rifle of the regulated sportsmen that they need fear, so much 

 as the local native. Game sanctuaries and regulations are good, but who is to 

 control the wild native himself? Pax Brittanica has freed him from inter- 

 tribal wars and slave raids, only to free him to play havoc with the game. 



"From my own inquiries I gather that they are well protected in 

 British administered Sudan (west bank of Nile) ; rare and protected 

 in Uganda; very rare in n. e. corner of Belgian Congo and protected" 

 (Maydon, 1933, p. 738) . 



Cotton (1933, pp. 1037-1038) writes as follows: 



Within the limits of British territory the species is practically confined 

 to the Soudan, though herds of females are said to stray into Uganda, and 

 ... by far the best area for Giant Eland is the Bahr-el-Ghazal, and by far 

 the best district is, in my opinion, Tonj. . . . The tracks of lion and leopard 

 are found occasionally; but the real enemies of the game are the forest 

 tribes, who are one and all expert hunters. . . . 



The Giant Eland . . . never, I think, trespasses on the cultivation .... 



A herd of Giant Eland consists usually of six or seven cows accompanied 

 by a bull .... They are never common, and, judging from the oldest 

 records of the country, these of Junker and Schweinfurth, they never have 

 been common within historic times. Indeed, they strike one as being relics 

 of the remote past, before man became the acknowledged ruler of the planet, 

 and their survival due to the remoteness of their haunts, shut in between the 

 desert and the equatorial forest, and now, as Africa is opened out, the Giant 

 Eland will be one of the first to go. 



