BUBALINE ANTELOPES 
THE BLACK WILDEBEEST OR WHITE- 
TAILED GNU 
CONNOCHCETES GNU 
P ERHAPS the most distinctively African of all the larger ruminants 
are the various species of wildebeests and hartebeests comprised 
in the great family of the Bubalidince or bubaline antelopes. 
These animals are all of large size, and both sexes carry horns. 
In outward appearance they would appear to be nearly related 
to animals of the bovine family, and this is especially the case 
with the wildebeests, which owe their name to their fancied resemblance 
to domestic cattle, “wilde beeste” being simply the equivalent in Boer 
Dutch for “wild cattle.” The conformation of the cheek teeth in all these 
animals, however, as well as that of their hoofs, kidneys, etc., shows that 
they are more nearly related to the great family of antelopes. The species 
of gnu to which this name was first given by the early Dutch settlers 
at the Gape is that which is now known as the Black Wildebeest, or 
the White -Tailed Gnu ( Connochoetes gnu). This animal was once very 
abundant on all the open plains and karroos of the Gape Colony from 
Cape Agulhas to the Orange River, and in all the open grass lands of the 
Orange Free State, and the high veld of the Southern and Western 
Transvaal, sometimes ranging beyond the south-western border of that 
territory into Southern Bechuanaland. I met with them there myself both 
in 1872 and in 1880. 
By 1871 — the date of my first visit to South Africa — black wildebeests 
had already been exterminated in every part of the Gape Colony with the 
exception of the district of Beaufort West, where they lingered on for some 
years longer. But at that time they were still to be seen in great herds in 
many parts of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal. In 1875 I saw 
very considerable numbers of these animals between Potchefstroom in 
the Transvaal and Harrismith in the Orange Free State, and again in 1876 
I met with a good many in the Western Transvaal near the Hartz River. 
But at this time they were being shot down in every part of their range at 
a terribly rapid rate merely for the value of their hides, and I doubt if there 
53 
