THE GNU. 

 Catoblepas Gnu. 



PLATE VI. THE GNU. 



THE gnu is one of the swiftest beasts that ranges the 

 plains of Africa. Mr. Barrows says, " The various descrip- 

 tions that have been given of it, all differing from each 

 other, should seem to have been taken from report rather 

 than from nature, notwithstanding that one of them was for 

 some time in the manage rie of the Prince of Orange, at 

 .Hague. Nature, though regular and systematic in all her 

 works, often puzzles and perplexes human systems, of 

 which this animal affords an instance. In the shape of its 

 body it evidently partakes of the horse, the ox, the stag, and 

 the antelope." 



They inhabit the plains of Central and Southern Africa, 

 abounding on the arid deserts in company with herds of the 

 zebra and guagga, and flocks of ostriches, and beyond the 

 bounds of civilization, where some species have not been 

 nearly extirpated, are almost always found in company. 



" Its head is about eighteen inches long, the upper part 

 completely guarded by the rugged roots of the horns, that 

 spread across the forehead, leaving only a narrow channel 

 between them, that wears out with age, as in the instance 

 of the buffalo ; the horns project forward twelve inches, then 

 turn in a short curve, backwards, ten inches : the space 

 from the root to the point is only nine inches. Down the 

 middle of the face grows a sort of black hair four inches in 

 length ; and from the under lip to the throat another ridge 

 somewhat longer. The orbit of the eye is round, and sur- 

 rounded by long w r hite hairs, that, like so many radii, 



