el 
the party with the words “ How did you catch it?” It appeared that the 
men had cut the young animal out from the dead mother, and found it 
perfectly formed in every respect. ‘This young Antelope lived with the 
caravan for several months, and was eventually killed by an accident. 
The following extract from Capt. Francis B. Pearce’s recently published 
‘Rambles in Lion-Land’ will show that, notwithstanding the persecutions of 
the numerous sportsmen who now visit the Somaliland Protectorate every 
winter, the Beisa is as yet by no means an extinct animal in the interior of 
that attractive country :— 
“We struck camp after having spent a very successful week on the Tyuli Hills, and 
turned our faces south en route for the zebra-country. Shortly after leaving camp I 
saw the largest herd of Oryx I have ever seen. It is a difficult matter to estimate the 
number of a herd of animals unless one possesses some education in that line, but 
at the lowest estimate there could not have been less than five hundred head. This 
enormous herd galloped past us at a distance of a little over two hundred yards. It 
was a beautiful sight to watch. With glistening coats and horns laid back, they tore 
past. Both J and I were too fascinated to think of firing.” 
The Beisa is well known in the Zoological Gardens of Kurope, and has 
bred in captivity on more than one occasion. ‘The first living example of 
this Antelope (a male) was received by the Zoological Society of London, as 
a present from Admiral Cumming, in 1874, and a female was presented by 
the Sultan of Zanzibar in the following year, from which the figure in the 
Society’s ‘ Garden Guide’ for 1876 (see fig. 94, p. 70) was taken. This made 
a pair of this animal for the Collection, believed at that time to be the 
only pair in Europe. In 1877 and 1878 other specimens were obtained. 
On April 12th, 1881, the first calf was born, and in September 1885 a second 
calf from the same pair. At the present time there are three represen- 
tatives of this Oryx in the Society’s Collection, and specimens of it may also 
be seen in many of the Zoological Gardens on the Continent. 
A coloured figure of the first Beisa calf born in the Zoological Society’s 
Gardens will be found in the ‘ Proceedings’ for 1881 (plate liv.). 
In the British Museum there is an adult mounted female specimen of the 
Beisa Antelope, from the Red Sea coast, obtained in 1871. ‘There is also 
the skull of an adult from the River Juba, obtained by Sir John Kirk 
and presented by him in 1879, besides other skins and skulls from various 
parts of Somaliland presented by Mr. W. F. Sinclair, Col. A. Paget, and 
Capt. Swayne. 
