BLESBOK 131 



BLESBOK (Damaliscus albifrons). 

 Nunni of the Bechuanas. 



Closely allied to the last (of which it may be only a local race), but 

 with less black on the body and limbs, the blaze divided by a white 

 line between the eyes, and the rings on the horns yellowish. 



Formerly to be numbered by hundreds of thousands, the' beautiful 

 blesbok has in the last twenty years grown very scarce indeed. It 

 can now scarcely be reckoned as a South African beast of chase, being 

 only met with in small numbers on a few Boer farms in the Transvaal 

 and the Orange Free State. Yet, thirty or forty years ago, blesboks 

 often literally darkened the face of the land with their innumerable 

 legions. The north of the Cape Colony, Griqualand West, the Free 

 State, and the plains of the Western and Southern Transvaal may be 

 described as the true home of this charming antelope in the old days. 

 In 1848 Gordon Cumming speaks of a sight he beheld in the blesbok 

 country. " The plains," he says, " exhibited one purple mass of graceful 

 blesboks, which extended without a break as far as my eyes could 

 strain ; the depth of their vast legions covered a breadth of about six 

 hundred yards." What a contrast with the scarcity of the present day ! 

 Distribution. — Northern plains of Cape Colony, Orange Free State, 

 Transvaal, and Bechuanaland ; now nearly exterminated. 



