THE ELANDS 
POINTED-EARED RAGES: 
TAUROTRAGUS ORYX TYPICUS 
TAUROTRAGUS ORYX LIVINGSTONEI 
TAUROTRAGUS ORYX PATTERSONIANUS 
ROUND -EARED RACES: 
TAUROTRAGUS DERBIANUS 
TAUROTRAGUS DERBIANUS GIGAS 
O F all the antelopes found in the world to-day, the various 
species or races of elands inhabiting one part or another 
| of the great African continent are in point of size by far 
I the finest. 
Mr (afterwards Sir John) Barrow has stated that in the 
Cape Colony in the year 1797 an eland bull was killed 
which stood six feet six inches at the shoulder ; whilst Captain (afterwards 
Sir Cornwallis) Harris speaks of the full-grown males of this species, which 
he met with some forty years later in the countries further north, as “about 
six feet six or eight inches high at the shoulder and upwards of twelve in 
extreme length.” Whether these measurements were made by eye or with 
a tape-measure, and, in the latter case, whether they were taken between 
two uprights in a straight line or over the curve of the body, no man now 
knoweth, but to-day there are no elands in Africa which attain to anything 
like a height of six feet six inches at the shoulder. 
The only measurements which I have seen recorded of the so-called 
giant eland of the Sudan is that taken by Captain R. J. Collins of an adult 
bull shot by himself near Wau, in the Bahr-el-Ghazal province. This 
magnificent animal stood five feet eight inches in height just behind the 
centre of the shoulder, and measured nine feet in length from nose to base 
of tail. The girth of the neck and body behind the shoulder is also given. 
These measurements are, however, commonly exceeded by old bulls of 
the race of elands still found in South Africa, though, according to my own 
experience, to no very considerable extent. 
In the early eighties of the last century I shot and very carefully took the 
standing heights with a tape-measure (between uprights placed at the top 
of the shoulder and the heel of the forefoot) of some very fine old eland 
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