The White-Tailed Gnu 211 



to the company of two other species, the quagga and the ostrich. Troops 

 of these three denizens of the veldt were almost invariably to be observed 

 feeding together. It is a curious fact that the blue wildebeest shows an 

 equal attachment to the company of the Burchell's zebra, and that, even at 

 the present day, these two animals may constantly be seen together in the 

 hunting-grounds of the far interior. Even when the game is disturbed I 

 have seen Burchell's zebras and blue wildebeests racing together over the 

 veldt in close company. Occasionally the ostrich also may be seen feeding 

 quietly in the close neighbourhood of blue wildebeest and Burchell's zebra. 

 The speed of the white-tailed gnu is very great, and it is possessed of 

 excellent staying powers. It is, however, a very conservative beast, and 

 having once attached itself to a particular part of the veldt will return 

 again and again to the same piece of ground. At the present day, when 

 pursued, it seems to know almost to a nicety what distance it may with 

 safety keep between itself and its pursuer, and except by stalking, and then 

 only with the greatest care and precaution, can a good head be obtained. 

 There is an exception, however, to this rule. Mr. J. G. Millais, 1 who has 

 had the most recent experience with these antelopes on a preserved farm in 

 the Orange Free State, mentions that they can be sometimes easily shot, on 

 their approach to water, by a hunter lying concealed, and that in compara- 

 tively recent times no less than twenty-seven head of these rare creatures 

 were thus wastefully slaughtered in a single night by a gunner who had 

 secured himself from observation. This had happened, not long before, on 

 the very farms to which Mr. Millais had resorted for the purpose of 

 shooting a specimen or two, and after that occurrence, the old Boer, to 

 whom the land belonged, determined to preserve the remaining members 

 of the herd left to him. This old Dutchman, Mynheer Piet Terblans, one 

 of the original Voer Trekkers of the Free State, has succeeded so well in 



1 For much recent and most interesting information on these animals see Mr. J. G. Millais' 

 A Breath from the Veldt. H. Sotheran, 1895. 



