10 
naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin,’ two years subsequently, Lichtenstein, 
after a description of this species from the specimen at Berlin, continues as 
follows :—'The skin which I describe is, unfortunately, the last that has 
been seen. Since 1799, when this specimen was shot, no more have been 
met with, and it is known that this Antelope was found only in the now 
well-populated district of Zwellendam, and nowhere else. Apparently this 
beautiful animal is now quite extinct.” 
The animal having been thus exterminated towards the end of the last 
century, its very existence became a matter of doubt to some naturalists, 
who were inclined to consider the specimens of it left in our museums as 
small or immature individuals of the nearly allied Roan Antelope (ZZ. equinus). 
This view was taken by Andrew Smith*, de Blainville, Gray, and even 
Harris, who, one would think, might have learned better from the traditions 
on the subject prevalent among the Boers. But the accurate Sundevall was 
strongly against this opinion, and, after examining the specimens at Upsala, 
Stockholm, and Paris, said decidedly ‘‘ Minimé animal fictum, ut credidit 
A. Smith.” Sundevall, however, failed to convert Gray on this subject, and 
Gray, although, as he tells us, he had examined the specimen at Paris, chose 
to unite this species to the Roan Antelope, and to call them both Hippotragus 
leucopheus. 
The most recent authority to vindicate the claims of the Blue-buck to 
specific distinctness is Herr F. F. Kohl, of Vienna, who, in an article upon 
new and rare Antelopes in the Imperial Natural History Museum, published 
in 1866, after accurately describing the specimen in that collection and 
pointing out its distinctive characters from H. equinus, gave a full list of the 
various synonyms to be allocated to these two species. 
There can be little doubt, therefore, that Hippotragus leucopheus must 
be regarded as an extinct animal, of which at the present time five 
mounted specimens only are known to exist. All these we have already 
alluded to, but we may repeat that they are to be found in the Museums of 
Paris, Leyden, Vienna, Stockholm, and Upsala. 
Finally, however, we are glad to be able to add that, although our National 
Collection does not contain a complete example of this species, yet it 
possesses a frontlet and horns which, after careful comparison, we have no 
hesitation in referring to H. leucopheus. ‘The horns (fig. 88, p. 11) are 
* Til. Zool. S. Afr., Mamm. sub tab. xxviii. (H. equinus). 
