172 Animal Life 
are long, and moderately convex in backward 
curve. ‘This animal was well-known to the 
Hebrews, Egyptians, and Greeks. Its range of 
distribution formerly included the greater part 
of North Afmca in addition to the Sahara 
Desert and Hgypt. At the present day it is 
found in Senegal and along the northern bend 
of the Niger, in many parts of the Sahara 
Desert, and the Egyptian Sudan. Its range 
would appear to extend still northwards across 
the Sahara Desert to the vicinity of the fertile 
regions of Tripol, Tunis, Algeria, and Morocco. 
Tt is still reported occasionally to be met with : : 
to the south of the dried-up salt lagoons—the photograph vy J. W. McLelan. 
region of the Shats—in the interior of Tunis. BLESBOK ANTELOPE. 
In Arabia a closely allied animal is the 
Beatrix antelope (Oryx beatriz). This handsome oryx is nearly pure white in 
coloration, except the limbs (which are brownish-black, the pasterns being white), 
the cheeks, the frontlet, and the nose-ridge, which are blackish-brown. The white 
tail has a heavy brown tuft. The horns are fully as long as those of the leucoryx 
(say, a little over two feet in length), but are much straighter and with less of a 
convex curve. The present range of this animal is restricted to the more southern 
portions of Arabia and the western shores of the Persian Gulf. The noblest 
development of the oryx is the glorious Gemsbok (Ory gazella) of Africa, south of 
the Zambezi. In this animal the horns, which as in all other oryxes make no angle 
whatever with the profile of the nose, but continue along the same straight line, have 
absolutely no convex curve, are not very broad 
laterally at their base, and are extremely sharp 
at the tips. The horns often attain a length 
of more than forty inches in the male, and, 
strange to say, an even greater length in the 
female, in whom, however, they are much 
slenderer and not always so straight in turn. 
This animal is almost eccentrically pied in 
black and white, with a third element of mouse 
or mauve-grey. The ears of the gemsbok are 
cobus-hke in shape and length, and do not 
attain the same extravagant length as is the 
case with the tufted Beisa (Oryx callotis) of 
East Africa. The gemsbok is also remarkable 
for a black tuft of hair on the under part of 
the throat im the male, which is perhaps all 
that remains: of the cobus throat-mane; the 
tail also is heavily tufted. It is not, however, 
much use describing this handsome beast, 
because, at the time of writing, it is very 
scarce and not far off extinction. It is 
difficult for the British authorities in Southern 
Africa to enforce in the far interior the 
GND HUMES regulations for the preservation of large game. 
(Bubalis caama). Our only hope for the retention on this earth 
Photograph by W. P. Dando. 
