BELATED PRESERVATION 7 



consist in the fact that this rising colony has 

 already very fully grasped and realised the 

 important duties she owes to her magnificent 

 and diversified game families. 



In the States of the South African Union, 

 or such of them as have devoted attention to 

 game preservation, most important results have 

 already been obtained. Had our efforts in this 

 direction only been made twenty years earlier, 

 we should have been able to save from extinction 

 at least one interesting form which, years ago, 

 occurred in great numbers, I refer to that 

 singular dun-coloxired horse, the quagga. This 

 has gone from among us, completely exter- 

 minated, it is said, by the rifles of the South 

 African farmers.^ Only just in time came the 

 existing game restrictions to perpetuate that 

 fascinating form, the black wildebeeste, com- 

 paratively few of which remain. A few elephants 

 and buffaloes survive in a state of strict pre- 

 servation in the Knysna Forest and in the 

 Addo Bush near Port Elizabeth; but it is, I 

 consider, most unfortunate that more was not 

 done years ago in the Cape Colony and elsewhere 

 to establish refugees for the protection of such 

 families as the brilliant-coloured bontebok and 

 others which have dwindled to a point dangerously 

 near to complete disappearance. 



At the present time, in various parts of 

 British East Africa, one of the most astonishing 

 sights the world can offer to modern travellers 



' The same may be said of that near relation of the roan 

 antelope, formerly called the blaaubok, but now entirely extinct. 



