MAMMALS. 643 



good buffalo-hunting, while fifty years ago there were large numbers within 

 a few miles of Cape Town. 



The line between the buffaloes and a long series of South African 

 forms — the eland, the kudu, the nilgau, etc. — is not a sharp one, while 

 that between these and the oryx, the gemsbok, and the like is scarcely more 

 firmly drawn. All are large animals, quick of sight and hearing and swift of 

 foot, characters which make them favorites with the sportsman. Of these 

 forms there are some forty or fifty species, so that mere enumeration of 

 their names would take more space than we can afford. We can only give 

 room to an extract from Holub's account of the springbok. " The grace- 

 fulness of its movements when at play, or when startled into flight, is not 

 adequately to be described, and it might almost seem as if the agile crea- 

 ture were seeking to divert the evil purposes of a pursuer by the very 

 coquetry of its antics. Unfortunately, however, sportsmen are proof 

 against any charms of this sort ; and under the ruthless hands of the 

 Dutch farmers, and the unsparing attacks of the natives, it is an animal 

 that is every day becoming more and more rare. The bounds of the 

 springbok may perhaps be best compared to the jerks of a machine set in 

 motion by watchsprings. It will allow any dog except a greyhound to 

 approach it within quite a moderate distance ; it will gaze as if entirely 

 unconcerned, while the dog yelps and howls, apparently waiting for the 

 scene to come to an end, when all at once it will spring with a spasmodic 

 leap into the air, and alighting for a moment on the ground six feet away 

 will leap up again, repeating the movement like an India-rubber ball, 

 bounding and rebounding from the earth. Coming to a standstill it will 

 wait awhile for the clog to come close again ; but ere long it recommences 

 its springing bounds, and extricates itself once more from the presence of 

 danger. And so, in alternate periods of repose and activity, the chase 

 goes on, till the antelope, wearied out as it were by the sport, makes off 

 completely, and becomes a mere speck on the distant plain." 



The term antelope is applied to the forms mentioned since speaking of 

 the buffaloes, and to several to follow. It is a collective term applied to 

 animals with a more or less close structural resemblance to our domesticated 

 cattle, and an external resemblance to deer. Still it is not capable of 

 exact definition. There is but one American species, the prong-horn, or 

 cabree, of the Rocky Mountain region. The most remarkable feature con- 

 nected with this animal is the fact, first pointed out by Dr. Canfield, that 

 these animals shed the horny covering of their horns, thus differing, so far 

 as is known, from all their relatives. In the deer the whole horn is shed ; 

 but in the prong-horn only the outer portion is dropped, the bony core 

 persisting. 



