50 WILD BEASTS OF THE WORLD 



animals also have a black stripe down the back in this variety, which 

 is far the most handsome, and nowadays the best known, the Eland 

 of the south being extinct in Cape Colony. 



Such a large animal as the Eland has, of course, attracted attention 

 from the earliest times of African colonisation, and the Boer settlers 

 of the Cape bestowed on it its present name, which really means 

 " Elk." Except that both Eland and Elk are ruminants, and that 

 each is remarkable for its large size, the two beasts have absolutely 

 nothing in common ; but, as previously observed in these pages, the 

 Boer pioneer appears to have had the most delightfully happy-go-lucky 

 methods of nomenclature when he came across a new animal. 



The manners and movements of the Eland are what might be 

 expected from his ponderous Ox-like carcase, so strangely combined 

 with a small harmless-looking head. He is a good walker, and can 

 trot at a pace which will force a Horse to go beyond a trot to keep 

 up with him. When allowed to " go his own gait " he is sufficiently 

 enduring, but if forced into a gallop he soon becomes blown and 

 exhausted, for he cannot keep up this pace more than a mile or so. 

 Yet he is able to bound or spring in a remarkable way for so heavy 

 an animal, and can easily get away from a horseman on broken or 

 wooded ground. When cornered he will charge at times, but his 

 attack is not very difficult to avoid, for he has none of the quickness 

 and determined ferocity of such animals as the Gnu and Sable 

 Antelope. Bull Elands, also, often get so fat that they can be driven 

 by a horseman almost like cattle ; but the cow, as is so often the case 

 with ruminants, is much more active, and some specimens of this sex 

 may give a mounted hunter a long chase. 



The Eland is undoubtedly an easy-going, peaceful animal by nature ; 

 although sometimes it may be found singly or in small family parties, 

 it is often met with in large herds, in which case several bulls will 

 be found living in apparent friendship along with their female associates. 

 Its food consists, according to circumstances, either of grass or leaves, 

 for it is addicted to browsing as well as grazing, and, in fact, prefers 

 country which is more or less wooded, if not actual forest. It is 



