38 POPULAR OFFICIAL GUIDE. 
NUBIAN GIRAFFES. 
The Eland, (Taurotragus oryx), is the largest and most 
imposing of all antelopes. As might be inferred from its 
great size, it is now so nearly extinct that it has almost dis- 
appeared from the lists of dealers in wild animals. The 
fine young pair now in the Antelope House was presented by 
the Duke of Bedford, from his famous animal collection at 
Woburn Park. The fully adult female is the gift of Mr. C. 
Ledyard Blair. 
Of Elands there are two well-marked species. That of 
eastern and southern Africa, here represented, was once 
numerous on many of the fertile plains of the great plateau 
now known as Rhodesia, and in fact throughout nearly the 
whole of the uplands of eastern Africa, from the Cape to 
the Sahara. Unfortunately, however, white hunters and 
modern firearms have reduced the. countless thousands of 
the great herds to numbers so small that the capture and 
exportation of Elands have practically ceased. 
Although a number of Elands have been born in cap- 
tivity, the number on public exhibition still remain very 
small. The only captive herd known to the writer is that 
of the Duke of Bedford, in Woburn Park, England, which 
is at once the admiration and envy of all collectors of living 
wild animals. 
The White-Tailed Gnu, (Connochaetes gnu), once was 
abundant in South Africa, south of the Vaal River. But it 
has shared the fate of all the other large mammals of that 
