15 
both on account of its vast superiority over all other wild flesh, 
and from the circumstance of its being obtainable in larger 
quantities with comparatively less labour.” 
The eland breeds readily in confinement, and as it has been 
found to bear all the vicissitudes of an English climate with no 
more protection than is bestowed upon valuable cattle, how 
much easier and less expensive it will be to rear them in this 
colony, the climate and capabilities of which resemble their own; 
tor in its natural condition the eland frequents the open prairies 
and the low rocky hills interspersed with clumps of w T ood, but 
is never to be met with in a continuously wooded country, 
rejoicing especially in low belts of shaded hillocks and in the 
isolated groves of acacia capensis; large herds of them are also 
to be seen grazing like droves of oxen on the more verdant 
meadows, through which some silver rivulet winds in rainbow 
brightness betwixt fringes of sighing bulrushes. 
Elands were first imported into England by the late Earl of 
Derby, in the year 1840. They bred; but he unfortunately 
parted with a male, and accident reduced his stock to a single 
female. Nothing discouraged, he recommenced, and in 1851 
the animals arrived. They were young, and the first calf was not 
born until 1853. Since then the noble work has proceeded with 
great success. In the catalogue of the animals living at Rnowsley, 
when the late Earl of Derby died, in 1851, figured five elands— 
two males and three temales, one of which had been bom there. 
The Zoological Society of London succeeded to this little herd by 
bequest. Lord Derby directed that whatever group of animals 
should be considered most eligible for the purposes of Acclima¬ 
tisation, at the time of his death, should be transferred from the 
Knowsley collection, in its entirety, to the Society’s possession. 
By the advice ot the late Mr. Mitchell, Secretary to the Society, 
the elands were most judiciously chosen, and the result has 
justified all the expectations which he formed of them. Up 
to the 29th of April, 1859, twenty eland calves had been 
produced in England from the Knowsley stock, independently 
of any which may have been obtained from three of the earliest 
horn females which were exported to the continent. 
The Zoological Society of London disposed of the increase, 
and from that source they have been extending over England 
and the Continent, they having realised (my friend Mr. Sclater, 
the present Secretary, informed me), J017O the pair—male and 
female—and up to I860 the Society had remaining in their 
collection five females and one male, all in good health. Herds 
