66 THE SAIGA ANTELOPE. 



spread out perpendicularly to the axis of his head, take at first a 

 nearly horizontal direction, then spring upwards in an abrupt curve. 

 At their extremity they terminate in a broad palm, set with sharp 

 snags around its outer edge. Their weight, for adults, averages from 

 fifty-five to sixty-five pounds. The eland has a short robust neck, 

 which is necessary to enable him to support the burden of his 

 branching honours ; but which, joined to the projection of his 

 shoulders, and the disproportionate length of his fore-legs, gives him 

 a very ungraceful aspect. Nor can he browse the herbage without 

 making a great digression or falling on his knees. The male, more- 

 over, under the throat has a sort of goitre, or swelling, garnished 

 with a rude pointed beard. The female wears a beard, but has no 

 goitre. The neck is surmounted with a short, stiff, blackish mane. 

 The rest of the hair is of a pronounced gray. 



The eland inhabits the marshy plains and banks of rivers ; he 

 dreads the heat, and to escape it will often remain during the long 

 summer days plunged up to his neck in the cool waters. He lives 

 with his comrades in tolerably numerous herds. The first birth of the 

 female is only one ; afterwards she produces two a,t a time. Fre- 

 quently the eland attains a prodigious stature. An individual killed 

 in the Altai measured four feet and a half in height to the shoulder, 

 and four feet and a third in length. His flesh is said to be light and 

 nourishing ; his hide excellent for making shoulder-belts ; and his 

 antlers are converted to the same uses as the horns of the stag. 



Among the hollow-horned ruminants I may mention the Saiga, a 

 kind of antelope which inhabits the Asiatic Steppes, and is met with 

 even in Poland. In figure he takes the poetical elegance of the 

 gazelle ; his horns are of a clear yellow colour, and of a transparency 

 which rivals that of tortoise-shell. His forehead is covered with 

 transversal folds ; he has no muzzle, properly speaking, but a kind of 

 snout like that of a hog. It is said that he drinks through his 

 nostrils. The saigas travel in herds of about two thousand each, of 

 whom a certain number keep always some distance in advance, in 



