NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL PARK. 



41 



LEUCORTX ANTELOPE 



WHITE-TAILED GNU 



white, render it a most conspicuous animal. On its native 

 veldt it has now become a very rare species, and seldom is 

 taken by sportsmen. The fine male specimen in the Park was 

 presented by Miss Jean Walker Simpson. 



The Sing-Sing Waterbuck, (Cobus unctuosus), is a crea- 

 ture of the lowlands, and frequents the dense tangles of tall 

 reeds that border many of the rivers of West Africa, above 

 the great equatorial forest. In captivity it sometimes is 

 one of the most insanely nervous and irrational creatures 

 imaginable, ever seeking self-inflicted injuries. 



The Blessbok, (Damaliscus albifrons), is a small biit hand- 

 some purple-and-white antelope which is now very nearly 

 extinct. Formerly a number of herds were preserved on 

 fenced farms in the Transvaal and Orange Free State, but 

 it is feared that none of them survived the Boer War. This 

 species never lived north of the Limpopo, but south of that 

 river it once was so numerous that a truthful traveler 

 described a vast plain as being "purple with Blessbok." 



The Nilgai, (Porta.v tragocamelus) , is the largest of the 

 Indian antelopes, and while it has the stature and the high 

 shoulders of a Baker roan antelope, its absurdly small 

 horns give it, beside the large antelopes of Africa, a very 

 commonplace and unfinished appearance. The males and 

 females are as differently colored as if they belonged to 

 different species. This animal inhabits the roughest 

 portions of the central plains of Hindustan, from Mysore to 

 the Himalayas. In northern India it is found along the 

 rivers Jumna and Ganges, in rugged and barren tracts of 

 ravines which in character and origin resemble our western 

 "bad-lands." 



