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We will begin with the finest and largest species of this group, the well- 
known Reedbuck of the English colonists of the Cape, large specimens of 
which attain a height at the shoulders of thirty-six inches or more. Like 
the White-tailed Gnu, the Reedbuck was first described at Amsterdam by 
Allemand, whose account of it is quoted by Buffon in the sixth volume of 
his supplement to the ‘ Histoire Naturelle,’ published in 1782. Buffon gives 
rough uncoloured figures of both sexes of this animal, under the name of 
‘Le Ritbok,” which he adopts from Allamand. Upon Buffon’s “ Ritbok” 
Boddaert, in his ‘Elenchus Animalium’ three years later, established his 
“Antilope arundinum,” and thus furnished the first specific name of the 
present species. In 1787 Schreber issued a copy of Buffon’s figure of the 
male “ Ritbok” with the name Antilope eleotragus upon it—a term which has 
been frequently adopted by the older authors, but which, as will be seen, is 
clearly subsequent in date to that of Boddaert. Bechstein, Shaw, and other 
authors following them have used arundinaceus, the adjectival form, as the 
specific term of the Reedbuck; but we see no reason for departing from 
Boddaert’s term of arundinum, which is perfectly good grammar. 
In 1815 Afzelius, in the course of his learned commentary ‘ De Antilopis 
speciatim Guineensibus, published at Upsala, introduced further compli- 
cations into the subject by dividing the Reedbuck into two species. One of 
these he called ‘* Antilope cinerea,” based upon the “ Ritbok” of Allamand ; 
and the second Antilope isabellina, founded upon a South-African specimen 
in Thunberg’s collection. So far as we can make out, however, Afzelius 
shows no valid reason for distinguishing the latter species from the former, 
and we believe that both these names may be safely referred to Cervicapra 
arundinum. It should be noted also that in his ‘ List of Mammals in the 
British Museum,’ published in 1848, Gray called the Reedbuck of the Cape 
Lleotragus reduncus, whereas the specific term reduncus properly appertains 
to the “ Nagor”—the West-African species, of which we shall treat further 
on. In his subsequent writings, Gray usually reverted to the more correct 
specific term “ arundinaceus”’ for the present species, but sometimes called 
it “ isabellinus.” 
Harris, in his great work on the ‘Game and Wild Animals of Southern 
Africa,’ published in 1840, figures the “Reitbok,” as he calls it, in his 
twenty-seventh portrait, along with the Wart-hog, and with an appropriate 
landscape of reeds and water. In those days the Reedbuck appears to have 
