BUBALUS CAAMA. 
nor the influence of habit, can be regarded as the cause which limits the range of a species, we 
must look for it in something else, and that something, I have no doubt, we shall find to be a law 
of the Creator, and that the animals who are under the influence of that law are kept within the 
districts destined for their abode, without any exertion of their own will. Many curious facts 
in corroboration of this opinion, may be acquired in South Africa, and much is to be found 
there calculated to incline us to an opinion that the movements, migrations, &c. of animals are 
the result of some imperative impulse, rather than the exercise of a free will. It appears to us 
that all species, whose ranges it is intended shall be circumscribed, are formed with dispositions 
and feelings suited to the localities which they are destined to inhabit, and that these, which 
are co-existent with life, regulate the movements of every individual of the species. As tend- 
ing to support this conclusion, we may instance what occurs in South Africa with two species 
of Catoblepus (Gnu). During a certain season of the year both species inhabit the same 
districts ; but during the remaining portion, one of the species resort more to the southward in 
large herds, and there feed, though it is exposed to almost incessant danger from the colonial 
hunters. The latter, while advancing to the southward, is accompanied a part of the way 
by the other species, but on arriving at the southern branch of the Orange River, the one 
ceases to advance, while the other crosses the stream, and proceeds into the colony year 
after year to encounter the colonial hunters, and acquire a food exactly similar to that it might 
have secured without migrating. Numerous other instances of a like description we shall 
hereafter notice. 
The Hartebeest, by preference, inhabits an open country, and hence is generally observed upon 
the plains in small herds consisting of from six to ten individuals, and often where the plains are 
extensive, many of such groupes are to be seen within the range of the eye. It is a very wary ani- 
mal, and views with strong suspicion the advance of man, so that unless favoured by special cir- 
cumstances, he finds it an animal difficult to procure. When disturbed, the herd generally scam- 
pers off in the train of some acknowledged leader, and they are rarely seen when flying, except 
in a string, one animal upon the heel of another. Their pace is a sort of heavy gallop, and 
though they do not appear to move with rapidity, yet the ground over which they go in a given 
time shows that their progressive motion is far from slow. When first they start, they appear ex- 
tremely awkward, and generate in the observer an impression that to overtake them must be no very 
difficult task. After they have advanced a little, however, the apparent stiffness in the joints 
of the hinder extremities disappears, and even the indications of weakness of the hinder limbs 
becomes so indistinct, that he is soon satisfied of the inaccuracy of his first conclusion. This 
and the Bubalus lunata are the only antilopes of South Africa, which exhibit the peculiarity 
alluded to, and have led many to remark their resemblance in this respect to the Hyance and 
Proteles Lalandii. In all of these animals there is a disproportion between the development 
of the anterior and posterior parts of the body, and each of them appears when in motion as if 
its hinder extremities were too weak for the duties they were destined to perform. 
