NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA 



up of South Africa revealed no more of the 

 1 blue goat ' : Sir Andrew Smith's great expedition 

 from the Cape to Bechuanaland added nothing to 

 the scanty literature of the species. In 1836 Captain 

 Cornwallis Harris, one of the most enthusiastic 

 sportsmen naturalists that Africa has ever known, 

 made his celebrated hunting trip * into Southern 

 Africa, through the territories of the Chief Mosele- 

 katse, to the Tropic of Capricorn.' Already long 

 * blotted from the book of life,' as Harris expressed 

 it, the Blaauwbok had become a zoological myth : 

 and although M. Geoffrey sent to Sir Andrew 

 Smith a drawing of the Paris specimen, the latter 

 declared that it merely represented a young Roan 

 Antelope which lacked the usual chocolate-red on 

 face and breast. For a genuine specimen of the 

 ' Blue Antelope ' Harris said he would have willingly 

 given a finger of his right hand : he was sceptical, 

 doubting if the species had ever existed, though in 

 his book of adventures he mentions the example 

 in the Paris Museum. Dr. J. E. Gray, after ex- 

 amining the actual specimen at Paris, agreed with 

 his brother naturalists : the few Blaauwbok remain- 

 ing in museums were declared to be but dwarf or 

 immature examples of the Roan Antelope. Finally, 

 however, the Blaauwbok was resuscitated by two 

 Continental naturalists Sundevall of Stockholm, 

 and Kohl of Vienna who were able to study it 

 at first hand from specimens in museums. Sunde- 

 vall showed that the feet of adult Blaauwbok were 



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