XXIV 
GNUS AND DUIKEDS 
Gnu is the Hottentot name of the weird antelope 
which the early Dutch settlers of South Africa named 
the Wildebeest; they regarded it as a wild form of 
domestic cattle. 
Gnus indulge in extraordinary antics when a 
waggon or a horseman approaches their grazing 
grounds. These excited movements are particularly 
odd on account of the extreme grotesqueness of the 
performer. The curious downward curving horns, the 
upright mane, the long hair on its face form a comical 
set of features worthy of such a droll comedian. 
The white-tailed gnu is nearly extinct: it was very 
common in • South Africa in the early part of the 
nineteenth century. The brindled species derived its 
name from the hair on its neck and the sides of its 
body being disposed in vertical bands of differently 
directed hairs. 
The horns in the young gnus are straight spikes ; as 
the animal becomes adult they curve downwards. 
It is strange that such a simple fact was not 
appreciated until 1889, a century after these animals 
were discovered by the Dutch settlers. 
Wildebeests are often seen on the Athi plains. They 
are not so common or so widely distributed in British 
East Africa as hartebeests. The gnus suffered almost 
as badly as buffaloes and kudus from rinderpest, which 
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