534 



THE GNOO. 



a circle round the cause of his dread, halting occasionally, and ever drawing nearer. By 

 taking advantage of this disposition, a hunter has been enabled to attract towards himself a 

 herd of Gnoos which were feeding out of gunshot, merely by tying a red handkerchief to the 

 muzzle of his gun. The inquisitive animals were so fascinated with the fluttering lure, that 

 they actually approached so near as to charge at the handkerchief, and forced the hunter to 

 consult his own safety by lowering his flag. The same ruse is frequently employed on the 

 prairies of America, when the hunters desire to get a shot at a herd of prong-buck Antelopes. 

 Several experiments have been made in order to ascertain whether the Gnoo is capable of 

 domestication. As far as the practicability of such a scheme was concerned, the experiments 

 were perfectly successful, but there is a great drawback in the shape of a dangerous and infec- 

 tious disease to which the Gnoo is very liable, and which would render it a very undesirable 



»^^^fti 



GNOO. — Connocheles gnu. 



member of the cattle-yard. The animal is frequently infected with one of the (Eestridge, or 

 Bot-flies, and suffers from them to such an extent that it ejects them from its nose whenever 

 it snorts, an act which it is very fond of performing. Ordinary cattle have no love for the 

 Gnoo, and on one occasion, when a young Gnoo of only four months old was placed in the 

 yard, the cattle surrounded it and nearly killed it with their horns and hoofs. 



The color of the ordinary Gnoo {Connochetes gnu) is brownish-black, sometimes with a 

 blue-gray wash. The mane is black, with the exception of the lower part, which is often 

 grayish-white, as is the lower part of the tail. The nose is covered with a tuft of reversed 

 hair, and there is a mane upon the chest. The Brindled Gnoo may be distinguished from 

 the common Gnoo, or Kokoon, by its convex and smooth face, the hair lying towards the nose, 

 instead of being reversed. There is no mane upon the chest, and the brown hide is varied 

 and striped with gray. It is higher at the withers than the Kokoon, and its action is rather 

 clumsy. It is very local in its distribution, being found northwards of the Black River, and 

 never being known to cross that simple boundary. It lives in large herds, and when observed, 

 the whole herd forms in single file, and so flies from the object of its terror. 



One of these animals, called in the interior the Blue Wildebeest, was captured by dim- 

 ming in a very curious manner. The animal had contrived to hitch one of his fore-legs over 



