THE BONTEBOK & BLESBOK 
DAMALISCUS PYGARGVS and D. ALBIFRONS 
LTHOUGH these two species of antelopes, the bontebok 
/% ( Damaliscus pygargus ) and the blesbok ( Damaliscus 
f albifrons ), are very nearly related, they may fairly be 
/" "■% looked upon as two distinct species, as the differences 
/ m. ^ etween them are constant, and, their ranges being 
JL widely separated, there are no intermediate forms 
connecting the one with the other. 
Ages ago, no doubt, the common ancestors of the bontebok and the 
blesbok had a continuous range over all the open plains of South Africa 
from Gape Agulhas to the territories now known as Bechuanaland and the 
Transvaal. The gradual desiccation, however, of the Karroo in the south- 
western portions of the Cape Colony — of which there is ample evidence — 
no doubt caused the withdrawal of these animals to the north and east 
from those parched and waterless plains. Those individuals of the species, 
however, which had reached the neighbourhood of Cape Agulhas, where 
there is plenty of water, would have had no reason to move, and thus a 
portion of the race became isolated, and in course of time differentiated, 
from the original stock. This isolated race of antelopes confined within 
very narrow geographical limits on the plains bordering the sea near 
Cape Agulhas — the extreme southerly point of the African continent — was 
first met with by the early Dutch settlers at the Cape in the latter half of 
the seventeenth century, and named by them “ bonteboks ” because of the 
remarkable variety of colours shown in their coats, for “ bont ” in Cape 
Dutch signifies spotted or variegated. Some hundred years later, as the 
descendants of the early settlers spread to the north and east, they met 
with another species of antelope very closely allied and very similar in 
appearance to the bonteboks of the plains near Cape Agulhas, and these 
were at first also called bonteboks, though it was recognized that they were 
somewhat smaller, and differed in certain other respects from the first - 
discovered species. Immense herds of these near allies of the true bontebok 
were met with on the plains to the south of the Orange River in the eastern 
portion of the Cape Colony, and although all their wild denizens have long 
since disappeared, these plains are known to this day as the “ bontebok 
flats.” It is quite certain, however, and no one who is acquainted with all 
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