NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA 



up of South Africa revealed no more of the 

 ' blue goat ' : Sir Andrew Smith's great expedition 

 from the Cape to Bechuanaland added nothing to 

 the scanty literature of the species. In 1836 Captain 

 Cornwallis Harris, one of the mo&t enthusiastic 

 sportsmen naturalists that Africa has ever known, 

 made his celebrated hunting trip ' into Southern 

 Africa, through the territories of the Chief Mosele- 

 katse, to the Tropic of Capricorn.' Already long 

 ' blotted from the book of life,' as Harris expressed 

 it, the Blaauwbok had become a zoological myth : 

 and although M. Geoffroy sent to Sir Andrew 

 Smith a drawing of the Paris specimen, the latter 

 declared that it merely represented a young Roan 

 Antelope which lacked the usual chocolate-red on 

 face and breast. For a genuine specimen of the 

 ' Blue Antelope ' Harris said he would have willingly 

 given a finger of his right hand : he was sceptical, 

 doubting if the species had ever existed, though in 

 his book of adventures he mentions the example 

 in the Paris Museum, Dr. J. E. Gray, after ex- 

 amining the actual specimen at Paris, agreed with 

 his brother naturalists : the few Blaauwbok remain- 

 ing in museums were declared to be but dwarf or 

 immature examples of the Roan Antelope. Finally, 

 however, the Blaauwbok was resuscitated by two 

 Continental naturalists — Sundevall of Stockholm, 

 and Kohl of Vienna — who were able to study it 

 at first hand from specimens in museums. Sunde- 

 vall showed that the feet of adult Blaauwbok were 



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