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the figure of the Unicorn so as to suit their beaw ideal of its attributes ;—its beauty, strength, and agility, being readily 
perfected by reducing the voluminous proportions of the body, and elongating the limbs; arching the neck at the same time, 
to bring it to a hostile attitude, and shifting the long slender horn to the centre of the forehead. Such would appear to 
have been the origin and progress of the fable of the Unicorn, from its foundation in ancient Persia, to its diffusion over the 
whole of western Europe; and such, at the present day, is the figure of the fictitious animal forming the sinister supporter 
of the Royal Achievement of England. 
That the Romans saw the Oryx in their games, is attested by Martial; and the straight horned species would even 
appear to have, been known to English Heraldry at the close of the fourteenth century, the earliest indication of this kind 
being among the cognizances of the Plantagenet branches, issuing from King Edward III, The Antelope was a symbol of 
honor held by the house of Lancaster. John of Lancaster, the great Duke of Bedford, bore his arms supported by this 
animal. Amongst various embellishments which are painted in the Bruges style of the period, in a Prayer-book once the 
property of that Prince, are found his armorial devices, with the Antelope black; the straight spiral horns of which, although 
placed almost at right-angles with the head, are evidently designed from those of the Oryx. The animal is adorned with gilded 
_tusks, but im other respects is not ill drawn. It is conjectured that this book was illuminated on the marriage of the Duke 
of Bedford with Anne, Princess of Burgundy; but in no case can it be later than the period of his death m the year 1435, 
which fact would almost prove, that the straight horned Oryx must have been known auterior to the Portuguese voyage round 
the Cape of Good Hope; and Mr, Pennant was probably well informed when he asserted an Oryx to exist in Egypt; for the 
figure of the animal is found among the ancient hieroglyphical representations in the tombs of its kings. The office of Avtelope 
Pursuivant was instituted in the time of King Henry IV., and continued to the end of the Laneastrian branch. Whether 
Heralds had an obscure knowledge of the animal through their intercourse with the Crusaders, cannot now be ascertained ; 
but the name itself appearing nowhere in classical Greek or Roman writers, seems derived, according to the learned researches 
of Baron Cuvier, from Av0od\oy, used by Eustathius, Bishop of Antioch, who wrote during the reign of Constantine.* 
The Oryxes, of which no less than four distinct species are recognised, are disposed over an immense extent of territory, 
inhabiting the more desert and thinly peopled districts from Moultan, and even the borders of China, through Southern Persia, 
and Arabia, over the deserts of Northern and Central Africa, to Senegal, and south to the Cape of Good Hope, ‘Their great 
strength, swiftness, and power of endurance, added to their ability to subsist upon the most scanty vegetation, including 
aerid succulents and thorny shrubs, are facts which sufficiently account for the vastness of their native regions; as they are 
thus enabled to pass rapidly over a great extent of country, and to shift their position as reasons or circumstances may 
dictate. Although possessed of the graceful and symmetrical proportions which characterise the Genus Antilope, there is yet 
in their aspect a certain bovine expression, which generally has obtained for them a nomenclature having reference to that class. 
The Arabs, indeed, and other natives of the climates which these animals inhabit, never consider them as Antelopes, but as 
species of the Buffalo, an idea which they extend also to the Bubalis and other species of that genus. ‘The Chinese Nicu Kyo 
Fo, or flying cow, with one horn only, remarkable for its swiftness and love of salt, if not the Leucoryx, or the Kemas, 
is probably an Oryx. The white Antelope, with lyrate annulated horns, rode by the goddess Chandra in Hindu Mythology, 
and which appears to be the Rurn of the Institutes of Menu, must likewise be referred to this class. The Dutch colonists 
of the Cape alone have fancied some resemblance between their Oryx and the Chamois of Hurope, and have therefore named 
it Gemshok. 
The South African Oryx very nearly corresponds with the Algazel of the Northern regions of that vast continent, and 
with the Beiza of Abyssinia.~ It is a most wild and warlike looking animal, not less remarkable for beauty, speed, and 
vigour, than famed for the excellence of its venison, which is everywhere held in the highest estimation. Although usually 
found in pairs on the Karroos, and unfrequented stony districts, which form its invariable habitation, —the males sometimes 
possess two females, constituting, with their young, a family of five or six individuals. The calves, which are born of a reddish 
cream color, become whiter as they increase in bulk, and are easily domesticated: but their uncertain temper renders it difficult 
at any time to pronounce them tame. Their horns, at first blunt and round at the tips, are soon ground to a fine needle- 
like poimt, by dint of raking and whetting them against rough stemmed trees,— thus becoming most formidable weapons, 
whether of offence or defence. The horns of the females are much longer and more Jodkinish in apeearduee than those of 
the males, who never meet during the rutting season without desperate battles, their courage and quarrelsome disposition fre- 
quently rendering their duels fatal, one of the combatants often being run slap through the body by a lounge from the long 
rapier-resembling weapons of his antagonist. The natives of Southern Africa occasionally arm their spears with the horns 
of the Oryx; and the Hollanders of the Cape have them polished, and headed with silyer, to serve as walking-sticks, for 
which purpose they are frequently too long! Strong, active, and vigorous, the Gemsbok boldly defends itself, when pressed 
* The Baron indeed writes Antholopos, probably from an error in the press: it occurs in the Hezameron, and is sufficiently curious. The Antholops is 
represented as yery swift, and hunted with difficulty; it has long jagged horns in the shape of saws, with which it saws trees of considerable elevation and thick- 
ness, When thirsty, it approaches the Euphrates, and gambols along its borders in the brambles, where it is sometimes entangled, and there caught and slain. 
+ The Algazel (O. Besoastica) was considered famous for a concretion in its intestines called the oriental besoar, which in former times was so much esteemed 
for its great virtue in expelling poison from the human frame, that Bewick tells us a stone weighing four ounce sold for £200 sterling! From an authority not cited, 
J. Mayor, in the Ephem. Cur. viii. (1677) firat described the bezoar as procured from these animals. 
