THE ELAND 267 



found on low rocky hills as well as on grass plains. Like so many 

 Antelopes, it can, although not abstaining from water when this is 

 available, go for long periods without it, for it is found constantly 

 in the Kalahari Desert, where there is water only for a few months 

 of the year, and even attains a particularly heavy weight in this arid 

 region. The Eland is, indeed, a very " good doer," and is particularly 

 apt to lay on fat, a characteristic which seems to have greatly endeared 

 it to hunters ; at any rate, they are generally loud in their com- 

 mendations of its flesh, which is said to be much like beef, but of 

 a superior quality. It must be remembered that the need of fat is 

 keenly felt in a life in the wilds, and any animal which supplies 

 plenty of this — which most game beasts do not — naturally commends 

 itself to the hunter's proverbially keen appetite. Mr. F. C. Selous, 

 indeed, thinks that Eland meat has been over-rated, in comparison 

 with that of some other Antelopes, though he admits that it is excellent 

 if the beast really is fat, which, of course, is determined by the quality 

 of the food it has been living on. 



Eland calves, which are somewhat like those of our Jersey cattle, 

 are usually born in July, and are easily tamed. Indeed, the animal 

 is one well suited for domestication, though its mildness of disposition 

 is, it must be remembered, only comparative — the male, like almost 

 all horned animals, being liable to become dangerous in captivity. I 

 know of a case in which one, in a fit of anger, fatally gored a 

 Burchell's Zebra which had long lived in the same paddock with it. 



Hopes used to be entertained that the Eland would be added to 

 our list of European domestic animals as a producer of choice meat ; 

 but, though it has constantly lived and bred well in our Zoological 

 Gardens — and even, with but little protection from the weather, in 

 various private parks — it still remains a mere menagerie animal. This 

 is probably because, in Europe, it cannot hope to compete in utility 

 with our ordinary domestic stock ; but the recent idea of introducing 

 it into Australia is a very good one, as its powers of doing without 

 water would make it a most invaluable animal for that country — or 

 any ' other where droughts work havoc with ordinary cattle. So far, 



