CATOBLEPAS TAURINA. 
Male.— The neck is broader, and the animal generally is stronger made; 
the colours are nearly the same as those of the female, only deeper and of a 
brighter hue. The horns are stronger, and the mane and hair under the 
throat is more bushy. 
Young.— Form and appearance clumsy and unseemly. Forehead and face 
intermediate between umber and reddish brown, the lower parts of the latter 
darkest : the upper parts of the neck and body light yellowish brown washed 
with grey : the lower portions of the neck and sides, the legs, and the tail, 
intermediate between ash-grey and yellowish grey. Hoofs brownish black. 
Ears externally and internally towards tips blackish brown. 
This animal and the common Gnu, ( Catoblepas Gnu,) are perhaps the two most interesting 
and extraordinary quadrupeds which occur in South Africa. Their configuration and their 
manners equally excite our wonder, and let our attention be directed to these unitedly or 
individually, the curious compound is not but to be perceived. When we survey their foim 
either while roving at large in their native haunts, or when prostrate at our feet through the 
efforts of the hunter, we feel alike with the native population the difficulty of discovering 
whether they partake most of the ox, the horse, or the antelope. 
When either the one or other of those animals, especially under excitement, stands in front 
of an observer, with the head and anterior parts of the body only distinctly visible, the idea of 
its strong resemblance to a small ox immediately arises. When again its body and posterior 
parts are the portions most conspicuously in view, the likeness to a horse is remarkable ; oi 
when its limbs only are taken in review, it presents a strong similarity to the more typical 
antelopes. 
As in their form, so likewise in their manners and habits, they manifest considerable resem- 
blance to several very different animals; but the ox is the one to which in these respects they 
approximate most closely, at least as far as my observations go. A herd of either of the 
species evinces in its proceedings much of the manner which is observed among a group of 
wild cattle, and no one who has noticed with but common attention the practices of the latter 
under various circumstances, will find himself disinclined at times to suppose that he is 
while looking on a herd of Gnus surveying a herd of wild oxen of a diminutive size. In their 
mode of carrying themselves when alarmed, or when their attention is otherwise excited, the 
resemblance is palpable, and in the toss of the head, the plunge, and the kick, which precede 
a forced flight, it is not less so. The propensity of cattle to threaten with an attack, as shown 
by certain fantastic motions of the head and body, is also regularly betrayed by this and the 
other species; and the inclination of wild cattle to survey any thing or any one who approaches 
their retreat, even should they have to fly immediately, is also the preponderating tendency in 
both the species of Catoblepas. Almost every species of animal which occurs in South Africa, 
excepting the Buffalo and the Gnu, retires at once, when even the cause for alarm is but 
trifling, prolonging their flight until, in their own opinion, they are out of danger ; and although 
all do not progress uninterruptedly, yet few if any halt longer at a time than is simply necessary 
to enable them to survey for an instant the position of the object which had alarmed them. 
