120 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



Blesbok must have formed one species ; the stock 

 somehow became separated, and the two races 

 developed slightly varying characteristics. Bontebok 

 are now strictly preserved, and may be only shot by 

 permission of the owners of the two or three troops 

 yet remaining. In all, they number, probably, not 

 more than 300 head. The horns of the Bontebok 

 are almost precisely similar to those of the Blesbok. 



THE BRINDLED GNU 



This large antelope, known universally in South 

 Africa as the Blue Wildebeest (Blaauw Wildebeest 

 of the Boers) (Connochcetes taurinui], has an extremely 

 wide range and is to be found, even at the present 

 day, from British Bechuanaland and the adjacent 

 Northern Kalahari right through British Central 

 Africa to British East Africa. In Nyasaland a local 

 race, known as Johnston's wildebeest, remarkable for 

 a whitish bar across the middle of the face, is to be 

 met with ; while in East Africa another closely allied 

 sub-species, known as the White-bearded wildebeest, 

 is to be found. The common Blue Wildebeest is 

 extraordinarily abundant in Portuguese South-East 

 Africa, especially between the Pungwe river and the 

 Zambesi, and is found also in fair abundance in 

 Rhodesia, North Bechuanaland, the Northern Kala- 

 hari, Ngamiland, Ovampoland, Damaraland, and 

 Portuguese West Africa as far north as Benguela. 



Both this and the White-tailed Gnu referred to 

 hereafter may be described as among the oddest 



