Roan Antelope The Blaauwbok 417 



successful, a man may often feel himself to have been exceptionally lucky. 

 Of course the one direction in which a cast should never be made, and yet 

 as often as not is made by the novice, is " down wind." A useful point to 

 remember in hunting the roan is that it is a late riser. It will lie as long 

 as an hour after the first break of dawn, if undisturbed, and therefore, when 

 one knows for a certainty that roans are in the neighbourhood, it is as well 

 to be moving early, and well away from camp before dawn breaks. It 

 may happen then, as it has happened to me, to kick them up from one's feet. 

 They will scramble up and away with a snort ; but the chances are that, 

 having traversed 80 or 100 yards at breakneck speed, they will, with the 

 fatal curiosity of the antelope, pull up to look back, in order to ascertain the 

 cause of the alarm, and then the hunter gets his chance. If the place from 

 which one kicks them up is circumscribed by bush or rising ground, let 

 them disappear before moving after them, and, once out of sight, double up 

 to the edge of the bush, or to just behind the crest of the rise, and they will 

 probably be seen standing looking back. To double instantaneously after 

 them gives them a second alarm, which will carry them well away without 

 any halt at all. 



The flesh of the roan antelope is coarse, but of no especial strength of 

 flavour, and it is to be preferred to that of the waterbuck and hartebeest. 



A. J. Arnold. 



The Blaauwbok (Hippotragus leucophczus) 



The Blue Antelope of Pennant ; Antilope leucopluea of Pallas 



The blaauwbok, which obtained its Cape Dutch name manifestly from its 

 bluish colouring, has been for about a hundred years quite extinct. It is still 

 one of the problems of naturalists. No complete example is, unfortunately, 

 to be found in this country, but mounted specimens exist in the museums 

 of Paris, Leyden, Vienna, Stockholm, and Upsala. There can be little 

 doubt that this antelope, which seems, even during the early days of the 

 3 H 



