130 TROPICAL SAVANAS 
The last group of African antelopes includes the 
large wildebeest or gnu, the hartebeests, and the bless- 
bok. The wildebeests (Connochoetes) are ungainly 
looking animals, with some resemblance to oxen, which 
inhabit open country in South and East Africa. The 
genus Bubalis includes the somewhat stag-like harte- 
beest, the blessbok, and the bontebok. All the three 
mentioned are exclusively African, though one member 
of the genus extends into Syria, and frequent grassy 
plains, especially those which have so great an exten- 
sion in Southern Africa. 
Generally, we may say that very many of the African 
antelopes are typical savana animals, but some, like 
the gemsbok, extend into the desert proper, a few, like 
the duikerboks, into the tropical forests, while not a few 
extend their range up the mountains, the klipspringer 
being a typical example, and some, like the water-buck, 
frequent the swamps, and seek safety there. Those 
which inhabit open plains find security in their numbers, 
the strength and powerful horns of the bucks, and their 
swiftness. Less powerful and slower forms must haunt 
country which offers some form of shelter, as e. g. rocky 
regions, thorny jungle, or swampy districts. 
The resistance which these wild forms offer to the 
diseases carried by tsetse-flies and ticks must have been 
a factor in their persistence, for these diseases form the 
greatest obstacles to the introduction of domesticated 
ungulates into the great plains of Southern Africa. 
The wild antelopes (cf. negro children and malaria) 
are apparently tolerant of the parasites of the various 
diseases, which affect them but little. They thus serve 
as reservoirs of infection, by means of which introduced 
forms may be infected. The virtual absence of wild 
ungulates in South America when it was colonized from 
