THE HARTEBEESTS 
other animals have now been divided had already been evolved. The 
ancestors of the curved-horned oryx probably entered Africa from Europe 
to the west of the Nile, whilst a nearly -allied species entered North-East 
Africa from Southern Asia, and was the ancestor of all the various species 
of straight -horned oryx antelopes. 
In like manner, I think, the African hartebeests of to-day are the descen- 
dants of at least three species which had already been differentiated from 
the parent stock before the first great migration of the northern fauna into 
Africa took place. Lichtenstein’s hartebeest, which is entirely an East 
African species, probably came first, and undoubtedly entered Africa 
from the East, as also must have done the ancestral form or forms from 
which all the species of broad-horned hartebeests have been derived, for 
these are all entirely confined to Africa east of the Nile. 
The ancestors of the narrow -horned hartebeests, as certainly I think, 
entered Africa from Europe to the west of the Nile. I am aware that Canon 
Tristram once reported that the Bubal hartebeest inhabited Palestine 
and Arabia; but no evidence in support of this statement has ever been 
received, and there seems little doubt that this animal has never existed 
there, nor, indeed, in any part of Africa to the east of the Nile. 
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