THE HARTEBEESTS AND GNUS 121 



and most bizarre of all beasts of chase to be found in 

 Africa. To myself the Blue Wildebeest always seems 

 clearly to represent the connecting link between the 

 oxen and the antelopes. Classed by naturalists as a 

 pure antelope, it has in the singularly bovine face 

 and fore -quarters strong characteristics of our 

 domestic cattle. Yet the legs clean, slender, shapely 

 and most wiry are distinctly antelopean. The 

 general colour is a slaty drab, brindled upon the 

 neck, fore-quarters, and part of the barrel with dark 

 vertical stripes. A thick, partly upstanding, partly 

 flowing mane of shaggy black hair, and masses of 

 hair about the face, dewlap, and chin, impart a wild 

 and somewhat ferocious aspect to the heavy head. 

 A pair of formidable, buffalo-like horns surmount 

 the head, and the thick black switch tail almost 

 touches the ground. The quarters are sloping and 

 the form somewhat mule-like. The eyes are wild 

 and yet very bovine in type. In height the Blue 

 wildebeest reaches about 4 feet 3 inches at the 

 withers. 



So common is this gnu over many parts of Africa, 

 that it must for many years remain one of the most 

 familiar of animals to the hunter. Troops usually 

 number from fifteen to fifty animals, but where these 

 antelopes are abundant, they may be seen blackening 

 the plains in scattered herds numbering two or three 

 thousand head. 



In South Africa, where I have hunted it on 

 horseback, the Blue Wildebeest, being one of the 

 fleetest and most enduring of all creatures, takes, 



