1 84 Great and Small Game of Africa 



The general colouring of the blesbok is in living specimens very 

 beautiful, but the coat, as with the bontebok, tsessebe, and hartebeest, fades 

 a good deal after death. The sides of the head and neck are of a rich 

 purplish brown ; the body colouring is brown, very curiously glossed 

 upon the upper parts with a tinge or bloom of purplish violet. This 

 singular glaze or bloom is one of the most remarkable things in connection 

 with this antelope, as it is also with its near ally the bontebok, and, in a 

 lesser degree, with the tsessebe. The chest and croup are rufous, the belly 

 and inner parts of the legs pure white. The face blaze also, from which 

 the animal obviously obtained its Dutch name (bles being the exact 

 equivalent for our English word " blaze," which, in turn, is derived from 

 the Saxon blase) is snow white. The main difference between the blesbok 

 and bontebok, or that most readily to be noted by the casual observer, lies 

 in this blazing of the face and the white rump-patches. In the bontebok 

 the snow-white marking runs down the whole of the front of the face 

 from the base of the horns without interruption. In the blesbok the full 

 blaze is slightly interrupted by a junction of the dark brown head colour- 

 ing just above the eyes, so that a white star, as it were, appears in the 

 centre of the forehead. The white marking, after this slight interruption, 

 runs from the point of union of the brown head colouring right down to 

 the muzzle. 1 In the blesbok, too, the notable white rump-markings to be 

 observed in the bontebok are absent, or rather are represented by pale 

 brown colouring, while the bontebok is somewhat darker upon the sides 

 and flanks. The tail of the blesbok is longish — 16 inches or 17 inches, — 

 composed of brown and white hairs, and reaches a point just below the 

 hocks. 



The blesbok has the faculty, like many other African animals, of 

 keeping, apparently without trouble or exertion on its own part, a marvel- 

 But note Mr. Sclous's remarks 



1 Tries 



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s arc, generally speaking, e 



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he bontebok, 



