BOSELAPHUS OREAS. 
Female and Young. Plate XLT. 
Colour. Female . — Forehead cream-yellow, tinted with yellowish brown ; 
rest of head purplish white, tinted with cream-yellow ; neck wine-yellow, 
tinted with hair-brown ; back, upper portion of sides, and outer surface of 
extremities towards body pale sienna-yellow, deadened with pale broccoli- 
brown; lower parts of sides, belly, and extremities towards hoofs dirty white, 
slightly tinted with cream-yellow. Hoofs and horns light liver-brown ; tuft 
of tail rusty yellowish brown. 
Form. Figure elegant, and very delicate as compared with that of the 
male ; limbs slender and finely turned ; mane short and reversed ; a little 
long coarse hair on the centre of the forehead. Horns long, straight, and 
rather slender, somewhat spiral towards and at the base, with a rudimentary 
ridge on the spire. Dewlap narrow, and nearly the whole length of the 
under edge of neck ; tuft of tail smaller than in the male. 
Young .— The prevailing colour in young specimens is a tint intermediate 
between reddish orange and yellowish brown, which tint only ceases to be the 
prevailing one when the animal has attained to lull maturity. In specimens, 
apparently full grown, the tint described is often very distinct, particularly in 
females, and in the latter it continues longer to be the prevailing colour than 
in the male. In some middle-aged females there are indications of veitical 
white stripes on the sides, which are distinctly visible on one in the British 
Museum. 
Elands are generally found associated in small herds, each herd commonly of from eight to 
fourteen individuals, and more than two adult males are seldom met, even in the largest herds. 
They appear at one time to have ranged over the whole of Southern Africa ; but of late few 
have appeared within the limits of the Colony. In the districts they inhabit they are often 
observed upon the plains, but more frequently near to mountains or broken hilly tracts, to 
which they retire upon being disturbed in the open country. They ascend hills, or even 
mountains, with great ease, and wind their course over peaks of the latter which appear almost 
impassable. While retiring, they generally arrange themselves in single file, and they only 
vary from that course when hotly pursued, and when the effort of every one is to effect escape 
in any way possible. 
When young, or but little advanced in years, and not over-fed, Elands are rather fleeter 
than a Cape horse ; but when older, and more especially if in good condition, they are so heavy 
and unwieldy, as to render it no very difficult task to come up with them, provided they have 
but little advantage in point of start, and be hotly pursued at once. In the event of their not 
beino- closely approached soon after they start, they are rarely overtaken, unless the chace be 
contffiued with fresh horses, as, when once they have run for a considerable distance, they 
either improve in speed, or, on the contrary, the horse diminishes in a greater proportion. 
