142 



other hand, lives solitary, or in pairs, and the males 

 do not appear to interfere with each other. This 

 agrees with the character of the localities in which 

 tlie addax is understood chiefly to reside. These are 

 not arid plains, half desert all over, but still having a 

 breadth of vegetation, such as it is, upon which a herd 

 can browse. They are little patches in the desert ; and 

 where these have supply enough of water to resist 

 being changed into sand, they are usually covered 

 with thickets of some sort or other. Thus the addax 

 has, in part at least, the solitary habit of the bush 

 a itelopes, rather than the social one of those of the 

 plains. The hoofs of this species are much broader 

 than those of the majority of antelopes, which 

 enables it to move more easily over the loose sands 

 which often lie between its pastures. The general 

 c ilour of the addax is grayish-white ; the head and 

 n ;ck reddish-brown, with a white bar o,n the forehead, 

 and some black round the bases of the horns. 



It is on the south and south-east margins of the 

 desert chiefly that the addax is found ; and as these 

 places come within the action of the periodical rains, 

 it fallows, almost as a matter of course, that the 

 addux, and all the antelopes which inhabit there, must 

 be migrants. Every one knows that the surface of 

 naked sand must be hotter than that which is co- 

 vered by any sort of vegetable ; and that therefore 

 the natural current of the air must be toward the 

 desert. That current always carries with it germs of 

 life of some sort or other, and when it blows a wind 

 it can carry the seeds of moderately large vegetables. 

 There is thus, therefore, a constant sowing of the 

 desert ; and if but one week of heavy rain fall upon 

 it, Sahara itself cannot maintain its sterility. The 

 rains on its margin are heavy and of some con- 

 tinuance ; and therefore when these fall the fertile 

 land invades the desert for many miles : and after the 

 rain has ceased, and all the moisture is evaporated, 

 the desert resumes its sway. These alternations play 

 backwards and forwards every year, and over greater 

 or smaller spaces, according to the annual proportions 

 of wet and drought, which vary, of course, as they 

 do in all countries. A season of great drought may 

 thus send the antelopes of the desert's margin to 

 Abyssinia, on the one hand, or to Senegal or the 

 coast of Guinea, on the other ; and a season of un- 

 common humidity may keep them in the interior. 

 We cannot, therefore, say distinctly that they in- 

 habit any particular locality, for they inhabit ac- 

 cording to the season. This is another point in the 

 natural history of central Africa which is well worthy 

 of attention. 



The ABU-HARB (A. Icucoryx) is the next south- 

 eastern neighbour of the addax. It is, in all pro- 

 bability, the oryx of the ancients, and may (indeed 

 must) in their days have been much more widely dis- 

 tributed than it is now. It is said still to exist not 

 only in that part of Africa which lies opposite the 

 south of Arabia, but in the latter country, and in 

 Persia, as far as the Indies, being, in all its localities, 

 the southern neighbour of the gazelle and its varieties. 

 The data are not complete enough for certainty ; but 

 this is probable, as the isothermal line does tend in 

 that direction ; and it is all, partially at least, within 

 the action of the rains. In former times it must, from 

 the extent of plain which has been converted into de- 

 sert, have extended much farther, and it is not possible 

 to suppose that any one acquainted with Egypt could 

 huve been ignorant of it. It is a gregarious animal, 



ANTELOPES. 



and an inhabitant of tile plains ; but it browses on the 

 leaves of trees, principally those of the acacias, and 

 not the saline plants, like the gazelle ; and therefore 

 when, in its progress towards the desert, the country 

 came to produce only gazelle's food, the abu-harb 

 (the oryx) must have departed or perished. As 

 its general habits resemble those of the gazelle, it is 

 highly probable that there are, as in that animal, 

 many dimatal varieties ; and that what have been 

 sometimes described as different species arc the same. 

 It must not be forgotten that, as the progress of cul- 

 tivation has broken the domesticated rnminantia of 

 Europe into many varieties, the progress towards 

 desolation has done the same with the wild rumi- 

 nantia of the districts under notice. 



Oryx. 



This species is about the same size as the addax, 

 but rather stouter in the body, and having the hoofs 

 narrower, and not so well fitted for walking over 

 loose sand. The general colour is white, variously 

 marked with black on the forehead and brush in 

 which the tail terminates, with brown on the legs, 

 and with rust-colour between the brown and white. 

 The horns are long, slender, and very slightly bent 

 from the curve of the forehead throughout their 

 length. This is the animal, the profile of which with 

 the horns seen as one, is supposed to have suggested 

 the notion of the fabled unicorn ; and the robust 

 make, the long tail with a brush, the mane, 

 though that is much exaggerated, and all the cha- 

 racters of the animal, give some probability to a 

 conjecture which can neither be established nor 

 refuted. The animal which has been described as 

 the ALGAZEL (A. Algazella) is a mere variety of this 

 one, and from the same regions that is, from the 

 south-east or south of the Great Desert ; and till we 

 know something of the country immediately to the 

 south, and of the species and habits of the ruminan- 

 tia there, any information which rests upon a single 

 specimen, of which the general native habitat is not 

 known, must be received with caution. 



The BEKR-EL-WASH (A. Bubalus). This is another 

 species of the margin of the desert, inhabiting per- 

 haps nearer to the cultivated lands than those which 

 have been already described. There is a slight trace 

 of resemblance to the ox tribe in the abu-harb and 

 the algazel, and the likeness is still more decided in 

 the present species, which, for that reason, gets its 

 Arabic name of Bekr-el-wash, or the " wild cow." The 



