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Final Natural History
Essays

June 20, 1903.

ARAB BOYS AT EL KANTAEA.

Final Natural History
Essays

BY
GRAHAM RENSHAW, M.B., F.Z.S.

AUTHOR OF

" NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS,"
"MORE NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS"

ILLUSTRATED

Sherratt & Hughes

60 Chandos Street London W.C.

34 Cross Street Manchester

1907

; :

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- $1704

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1benr? Scberren, j£sq.

PREFACE.

THE present volume completes a series of sixty Essays
dealing with typical examples of the class Mammalia. In
this work, as in its predecessors, the subject has throughout
been viewed from the combined standpoint of the zoologist
and the historian; the photographs are selected from a
series of over five hundred negatives taken by the author.

The opportunity is here taken of thanking the Press for
many long and most encouraging notices of previous
studies, and the public for their kind reception of former
volumes both at home and abroad.

GRAHAM RENSHAW.

October, 1907.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

I. THE DRILL BABOON ... ... ... ... ... 1

II. THE RING-TAILED LEMUR ... ... ... ... 11

III. THE OCELOT CAT 20

IV. THE CARACAL LYNX 29

— V. THE BROWN HY^NA 37

VI. THE ARCTIC Fox ... ... ... ...* ... 53

VII. THE PACIFIC WALRUS 6l

VIII. THE EUROPEAN BISON 71

IX. THE CAPE BUFFALO 86

X. THE MUSK Ox 100

XI. THE BARBARY SHEEP Ill

XII. THE NILGAI ANTELOPE ... ... ... ...117

XIII. THE BEISA ANTELOPE ... ... ... ... 127

XIV. THE BEATRIX ANTELOPE ... ... ... ... 136

XV. THE LEUCORYX ANTELOPE ... ... ... ... 142

-XVI. THE BUBALINE ANTELOPE 148

XVII. THE BLESBOK ANTELOPE ... ... ... ... 156

XVIII. THE BABIRUSA HOG 168

XIX. THE SUMATRAN RHINOCEROS ... ... ... ... 178

~ XX. THE EUROPEAN BEAVER ... ... ... ... 190

XXI. THE CANADIAN PORCUPINE 200

XXII. THE SPOTTED PACA 206

XXIII. THE TASMANIAN DEVIL ... ... ... ... 211

XXIV. THE DUCK-BILLED PLATYPUS .. .218

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

ARAB BOYS AT EL KANTARA ... Frontispiece.

TO FACE PAGE

DRILL BABOON ... ... ... ... ... 1

OCELOT ... ... ... ... ... ... 20

WASTED ELOQUENCE 29

ISABELLINE LYNX 32

BROWN HY^NA ... ... ... ... ... 38

THE WHITE COMPANY ... ... ... ... 53

EUROPEAN BISON ... ... ... ... ... 72

THE AUROCHS 76

EUROPEAN BISON 81

AFRICAN BUFFALO ... ... ... ... ... 86

BUSH Cow ... ... ... ... ... ... 97

BARBARY SHEEP ... ... ... ... ...112

OREVY'S ZEBRA ... ... ... ... ... 128

BEISA 130

THE "UNICORN" 132

A PAIR OF GEMSBOK 134

BEATRIX ANTELOPES 1 36

LEUCORYX 144

_CAPE HARTEBEEST ... ... ... ... ... 150

BLESBOK ... ... ... ... ... ... l6l

BABIRUSA 175

SUMATRAN RHINOCEROS 188

CANADIAN BEAVERS ... ... ... ... ... 199

TASMANIAN DEVIL . 211

THE DRILL BABOON

•

August 30, 1907.

DRILL BABOON.

Fully adult male, twelve years old. Note the swelling on each cheek, the immense
shoulders, and the short backwardly directed tail.

THE DRILL BABOON.

".Dril, a stone-cutter's tool wherewith he bores holes in
marble, &c. Also a large overgrown Ape and Baboon,
so-called*"

Blounfs Glossographia, $th Edition^ i68x~

The study of the living mammalia of the world,
as contrasted with the allied pursuits of ornithology
and entomology, may well be reckoned the
Cinderella of the sciences. Comparatively few
workers busy themselves with the mammals, which
are vertebrates of the highest importance, presenting
a thousand problems yet unsolved and an endless
variety of external form and psychological interest.
Structure, coloration, variation, distribution, habits,
and historical associations — all these concern this
class of animal as much as any other : perhaps, how-
ever, the comparative difficulty of obtaining many of
them has militated against the popular study of the
group. The mammals of West Africa until very
recent times have been practically unknown ; and
these remarks apply with particular emphasis to that
hideous satyr of the Guinea forests — the drill baboon.

The drill (Papio leucophceus) — sek of the Bulu
natives — is a burly powerful beast, about as big as
a moderate-sized dog. The ugly head is relatively
large, and is united to the body by a very short heck ::
the limbs are somewhat slender, and terminate in
powerful hands. The shoulders are enormous, being-

2 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

so sheeted in muscle that the elevated mass over the
withers recalls the ruff of an Elizabethan courtier ;
but the waist is well defined and almost shapely !
The tail is not reversed over the back as erroneously
depicted in books : on the contrary it projects
backwards at an angle of 45°. The face is naked, and
the buttocks are almost so : in adult life a sausage-
shaped swelling is developed on each cheek, caused
by the inflation of the underlying maxillary bones.
The eyes are situated close together and deeply set
in the head ; the nostrils are slightly truncated ; the
mouth is large. A slight beard — much less than one
would suppose from the illustrations in books ! adorns
the chin : while a semi-ruff of hair encircles the face
and a semi-mane bedecks the shoulders. There is
no crest of hair along the vertex, as stated in books :
on the contrary, the cranium of the adult drill is
remarkable for the flatness with which it slopes down
to the eyebrows. To this account add the colouring:
the brilliant hues of a bird of Paradise on the carcase
of a baboon produce an effect grotesque and hideous
in the extreme. The following is a description of
the coloration of an adult male :—

Face purplish black, glossy, finely granulated, and
margined throughout by a narrow edge of salmon
colour which extends right up each side of the
greenish black forehead. Sausage-shaped inflations
on the cheek coppery brown above, purplish black
below. Lower lip black, margined by a band of

THE DRILL BABOON 3

brilliant carmine, which imparts a ferociously savage
appearance to the already hideous physiognomy :
chin white. Iris hazel. Ears purplish brown, and
the fur immediately behind them white. General
colour of the pelage greenish grey (not brown as has
been erroneously stated) ; a dull black dorsal line
extends from occiput to pelvis.1 Buttocks crimson
lake, shading into purplish lilac externally.

Young drill differ from adults in lacking the
swellings on the cheeks, the carmine on the lower
lip, and the vivid coloration of the buttock. An
immature male examined by the writer on January
12, 1906, had the general hue of the fur dull blackish
brown, though the green tinge of maturity had
already begun to appear on the outside of the
forelimbs.1 The face was black and glossy, shining
like leather, and each cheek was slightly inflated;
the lower lip was black, and a salmon-coloured area
on the lower jaw heralded the carmine of maturity;
the chin was greenish grey. The abdomen was but
thinly haired, showing the bluish skin underneath;
the toes and nails of all four limbs were purplish
black. The drill in its immature stages is of special
interest, on account of its close resemblance to the
young of the yet more hideous mandrill.

The mandrill (Papio mormon) — perhaps the hog
ape or chceropithecus of Aristotle — is the largest of

1. The green hue of the fur in monkeys is produced by a mixture of
golden yellow and black rings on the individual hairs, much as a greenish
powder is obtained by mixing sulphur with iron filings.

4 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

all the baboons. Ugly, powerful, and ferocious, it
differs from its cousin in the greater inflation of the
cheeks, which are elevated into a series of rib-like
sculptures: in the adult these are brilliant with ultra-
marine, and separated by grooves of deep purple.
The pig-like snout is truncated in shape and scarlet
in colour, and the middle area of the face is also of
this hue. The beard and whiskers are orange
yellow, the ears bluish black, and the body fur
blackish olive. Female specimens have the face
blue only, without any purple, and even the males
do not assume the scarlet on the face till they have
cut their permanent teeth. In very young males the
face is merely dull purple like a dried raisin, and the
whiskers and beard are brownish yellow. A long
series — twenty living specimens — was recently
examined by the writer. Carefully worked out, the
chief differences between the two appear to be :—

DRILL. MANDRILL.

1. Prominences on cheek Prominences ribbed and

fusiform, smooth. deeply grooved.

2. No distinct beard. Beard distinct and

pointed.

3. Colour of face purplish Colour ultramarine with

black. purple grooves.

4. Whiskers greenish grey Whiskers orange yel-

like adjacent fur. low.

5. Fur on chest greenish Fur dull white.

black.

THE DRILL BABOON 5

In addition, the salmon-coloured line bordering
the face and the carmine of the lower lip are peculiar
to the drill. The above table refers to adults of
both species: the young, though superficially alike,
may also be distinguished with a little practice.
Thus young drill have the upper eyelids blackish
brown — in mandrill they are whitish (as in mangabey
monkeys) — and the face and ears of drill are deep
black, not purplish as in their cousins.

Owing to the confusion formerly existing in the
minds of naturalists with regard to these baboons,
the date of the actual discovery of the drill by
Europeans will probably never be known. The
early zoologists (small blame to them with their
lesser opportunities !) supposed that the various
stages of growth and colouring indicated as many
different species. Thus Thomas Pennant, who in
1781 described the mammals in the famous museum
of Sir Ashton Lever, figures a "wood baboon" as
plate 95 of his " History of Quadrupeds." This
beast had a long dog-like face covered with small
(? smooth) glossy black skin : a coat mottled with black
and tawny, white nails, and a very short tail — surely
a recognisable portrait of the present species.
Similarly, his "cinereous" and ''yellow" baboons
appear to have been merely immature drill : Pennant
himself seems to have had some suspicion of this,
for he notes that the yellow differed from the wood
baboon merely in size and its hairy hands, adding,

O NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

pertinently enough •' Their place, age, and history
obscure."

About this time, unfortunately, the chaotic state of
simian nomenclature was increased by the importation
into Europe of the mandrill — also a West African
form; confusion was thus " worse confounded," and
the drill' put down merely as an immature mandrill
which lacked the brilliant ultramarine cheeks of the
adult.1 In 1809, however, the industrious and gifted
savant Geoffroy St. Hilaire saw established in Paris
the famous menagerie attached to the museum of
the Jardin des Plantes, the parent of all modern
Zoos, antedating by many years the splendid
establishments of Regent's Park and Amsterdam, of
Cologne and Antwerp, of Hamburg and Berlin.
Eminent scientists studied in the new vivarium
animals brought from every quarter of the globe,
and prominent amongst these naturalists was
Frederic Cuvier, who discovered the essential
distinctness of the drill, and described it in 1807
under the name of Simia leucophaa. Since Cuvier's
day many drill have been imported alive into Europe,
and together with the mandrill can always be seen
in collections of any size.

A veteran drill — a male which has lived for over
twelve years in captivity — is still exhibited in the

1. In October, 1799, a mandrill was exhibited alive at Chester. It is
interesting to note that although these baboons have for many years
been brought alive to Europe, no full-grown mandrill was exhibited in
the London Zoological Gardens until November 20, 1906.

THE DRILL BABOON 7

Zoological Gardens at Manchester. Imported when
six months old, and received at the Gardens in
May, 1895, this Nestor has become almost a classical
specimen; he has been repeatedly photographed,
and was figured with some very interesting letter-
press in the " Field" for March 18, 1905. The
present writer has repeatedly studied this individual,
probably by far the finest specimen that has ever
been seen in captivity. The beast has long ago
become completely acclimatised, and on January 12,
1 906, was walking about his open-air cage regardless
of the cold east wind. When he shook himself his
ample shoulders quivered in their sheeting of muscle.
He was fond of perching on a branch with all four
feet approximated in chamois fashion, his minute
eyes jerking under their ample brows with a quick
movement as if worked by a spring. He ran well
though jerkily on all fours — baboon fashion — his silly
little tail wagging to and fro as he did so, and traversed
a branch with a remarkable lightness hardly to be
expected of such an animal. At the time of writing
(July 15, 1907) this veteran continues in splendid
health, a living triumph of the open-air treatment,
twelve years old. Some few years ago there was
another remarkably large drill in the same collection.
So much for examples in captivity; the home life of
the drill may now be considered.

Scene : An outlying spur of a range of mountains
composed of red conglomerate, watered at the base

8 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

by a small river, and overlooking a dark tangle of
forest. The heavy tropical night has given place to
a grey uncomfortable dawn ; the river, sheeted in
mist, flows sluggishly through the forest, which here
and there shows open spaces and on its outer edge
merges into a wide plain thinly covered with
straggling bush. One or two buck stand at the
edge of the covert, wary and motionless before
beginning to feed : further out on the plain a troop of
tiang hartebeest are already grazing, and loom through
the haze as large as carthorses. Perched aloft
on the craggy escarpments are several troops of drill
baboons, huddled miserably together and occasion-
ally shivering in the biting air : the old males, burly
and grizzled, have already posted themselves as
sentinels to guard the safety of the others. Leopards
infest these rocky ledges, and the grim old fellows
know it, as they stand on duty with all four feet
close together like the hoofs of a chamois, and their
tiny eyes scowling out from under their heavy brows.
Gradually the mist rises : with the growing bright-
ness the vapour, once a foggy curtain, rolls up the
beetling precipices till at last it hangs in feathery
streamers about the summits of the crags. The hot
sunshine begins to warm the chilly hillsides : the
baboons rouse to activity in the welcome rays. The
cries of various birds are heard : far below in the
valley an immense flock of glossy starlings, a lovely
cloud of violet and purple, wheels through the mellow-

THE DRILL BABOON 9

ing air and settles on the fig trees, which suddenly
seem laden with jewelled fruit. A troop of hornbills
flap heavily across the river and begin to scramble
along the boughs of the thicket ; touracos and
plantain-eaters are already shrieking and playing
amongst the branches.

Uttering now and then a surly bark, the drill
begin to descend the precipitous cliffs and, arrived
on the level ground, search industriously for break-
fast, walking on all fours like hideous dogs. Stones
are overturned for the sake of the scorpions or the
lizards they may conceal ; tubers are carefully sought
out, and grubbed up by sable hands. Two or three
of the older animals continue to mount guard,
perching on a fallen-tree trunk or any similar object;
infant drill are seen clinging under their devoted if
ugly mothers, or perched on their backs. A small
buck trips along ; suddenly with a snort and a stamp
of its taper foot it stands motionless, and in another
instant has dived into the bush, like a penguin into
the breakers, saving its life by the quickness of its
flight. The drill gradually traverse the thicket, and
continue to explore the bare ground far away from
cover; the youngsters can be plainly seen scampering
about their elders and playing a thousand pranks.
Far in the baking heavens swings a solitary vulture,
a sable speck against the blue.

Evening. The drill are retiring to their rocky
dormitories. Shadowy in the fast-falling darkness

10 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

eerie bats flit to and fro, squeaking in a shrill
monotone. The voice of a serval cat, calling in the
reed-beds, grates harshly in the velvety night ; knee
deep in the stream a great herd of waterbuck
splash and snort, and a strong tarry odour pervades
the breeze. A troop of roan antelope — magnificent
beasts with the stature of horses and stout curved
horns — wander about the foot of the mountains
occasionally neighing to each other ; fearing neither
lion nor leopard, glorious in their giant strength,
they seem in their stalwart persons to realise the
fable of the horned horse. High up on the hillside
the baboons are chattering among themselves. A
dark shadow creeps out among the rocks ; a stalk ! a
spring ! and one of the young drill is shrieking in
the grasp of a leopard. A terrible commotion takes
place, the troop leaders barking furiously as the
whole ungainly crowd bounds upwards in full flight,
running along the rocky ledges like simian chamois.
The' excited clamour of the drill resounds through
the mountains, now again dimming with mist ;
then answers the savage skirring growl of the
leopard as with heaving flanks and lashing tail he
tears at his prey. Far below in the valley rises the
roaring bellow of a hippopotamus ; another and
another answers it, till the very cliffs seem to shake
with the tremendous volume of sound.

Then for a moment, with the last rays of the
setting sun, there is silence.

THE RING-TAILED LEMUR.

In these days of extended zoological knowledge,
when Science announces the discovery of some new
animal almost every week, one may well draw
attention to certain interesting species which, by no
means rare in their own country, are often imported
alive into this one. The bush baby or Maholi
galago, with its big eyes and ears ; the serval cat,
long-legged and short-headed; the fennec fox, tiny
and timid; the Prevost squirrel, smartly tricoloured
in red, white, and black; the quaint jerboa, and many
others, merit far more attention than they have
hitherto received. From the quaintness of its
exterior and the gentleness of its disposition these
remarks apply especially to the pretty ring-tailed
lemur of Central Madagascar.

The ring-tailed lemur or Madagascar cat (Lemur
catta) is about the size of a domestic tabby — to which
animal, however, it bears no real relationship. The
nose is sharply pointed ; the eyes and ears are
moderately large; the face lacks the rough fringe of
hair found in certain of its congeners. The
delicately formed hands and feet are shod with
leathery skin, and adapted, like those of monkeys,
for grasping branches ; the somewhat bushy tail is
long, though not prehensile. The general colour of
this beautiful lemur is ashy or reddish grey, darker

12 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

above and shading into snow-white below. The
muzzle and lower jaw are black, while the cheeks
and vertex are iron grey, and a circle of purest white
sweeps round each ear to join its fellow across the
forehead. The eyes are ringed with black circles,
recalling the tawny " spectacles" of the Peruvian
bear;1 the tail, banded with alternate black and
white, recall that of the pretty bassaris "cat" of
Mexico. The palms of the hands and the soles of
the feet are black, as in most lemurs; the present
species is, however, the only one in which the tail is
not uniformly coloured.

Both sexes of the ring-tailed lemur have a
remarkable gland situated on the inside of the
forearm, a little distance above the wrist. Oval in
shape, soft and compressible in consistence, this
gland is raised about one eighth of an inch above
the surface of the limb; it is striated in fine lines like
those of the palm of the hand, with which indeed it
is continuous by a narrow strip of hairless skin.
Structually, it consists of a congeries of follicles
resembling sweat glands, discharging by hundreds of
microscopic orifices; a blunt spur (perhaps hardened
secretion) projects in old animals across the organ
from its inner edge. A tuft of long hair, like the
whisker of a cat, is situated at a little distance above
the gland; it may actually, as in cats, exert some

1. The spectacled bear ( Ursus ornatus) is a rare species inhabiting the
Peruvian Andes.

THE RING-TAILED LEMUR 13

tactile function. These glands occur in certain other
lemurs ; Garnett's galago has one situated on the
ankle instead of the forearm, consisting of a tuft of
spiny outgrowths. The function of these curious
structures is as yet unknown, though it has been
suggested that they may act as climbing irons,
just as the scales under the tail of the African
flying squirrels assist them to swarm up tree-trunks.
It has been stated that the range of the ring- tailed
lemur is limited to the central table land of Mada-
gascar, on the south and south-western borders of
the Betsileo province; the Leyden Museum, however,
contains a male specimen which Pollen and Van
Dam's expedition obtained in 1865 at St. Augustine's
Bay, on the west coast of the island. The province
of Betsileo is remarkable for its magnificent scenery
of bold mountain ranges ; there are also many
isolated peaks, lofty and precipitous, which serve as
landmarks. Several fine rivers flow from east to
west to empty into the Mozambique Channel ;
although some of them are encumbered by rapicls,
others are broad magnificent waterways. Many of
the valleys are adorned with the famous ravinala
(traveller's tree) or tangled with bamboo thickets; and
so dense is the undergrowth in these places that two
travellers cannot march abreast. Some of the hill-
sides are volcanic, littered with lumps of dark brown
rock (slag or scoria ?) and full of bubble-holes : hard
ridges of stratified sandstone occur here and there, and

14 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

reefs of granite or gneiss. This remarkable country
is the metropolis of the ring-tailed lemur: it avoids
the dense forest, keeping to the rocky precipices, its
leathery hands gripping the wet surfaces as a school-
boy's sucker grips a stone. Its food consists of
bananas, figs, prickly pears, &c. : the latter fruit is
shorn of its spiny envelope by means of the upper
canine teeth, which serve as rough and ready dessert
knives. The soil of Betsileo is poor : but rice,
manioc, haricot, sugar-cane, and potatoes are all
cultivated, and the prickly pear is abundant.
Plenty of food; numerous springs of good water in
nearly every little valley; no lions, leopards, or
wolves, nor even porcupines or squirrels ; Mada-
gascar is a paradise for the lemurs, which, enjoying
abundant food and free from molestation from large
carnivora or from competition with other aboreal
forms, have developed into many species in the
course of ages.1 Grey, black, black-headed, broad-
nosed, diademed, and many other lemurs are now
familiar to naturalists ; so abundant is the material
for study of these prosimians that the number of
true species is by no means definitely known. The
ring-tailed lemurs go in large troops of from thirty
to forty individuals ; most lively and noisy at sunrise
and sunset, they are said to sleep during the heat of
the day and at night.

1. Even the natives from superstitious reasons are loth to molest the
lemurs.

THE RING-TAILED LEMUR 15

The prosimian race has, however, one enemy to
fear; deep in the brake lurks the terrible fossa
(Cryptoprocta ferox), a long lanky beast about twice
as big as a cat, with a tawny coat and a long
cylindrical tail. The only carnivore of any size
inhabiting Madagascar, it is most interesting evolu-
tionally, being related both to the true cats and to
the civets, having retractile claws like the former,
but plantigrade feet like the latter, animals. Lurid
stories current regarding its ferocity, even towards
man, are perhaps tinged with a little French vivacity
of imagination ; but its bloodthirstiness towards its
prey can well be credited. The fossa was described
and figured by Mr. Bennett in Vol. I. of the Transac-
tions of the Zoological Society, and the actual
specimen was long preserved in the museum at
Bruton Street ; since Mr. Bennett published notes
on its anatomy this animal was probably sent over
in alcohol. It had been obtained from the interior
of Southern Madagascar by Mr. Telfair, the Presi-
dent of the Natural History Society of Mauritius.
The animal was a young female ; Mr. Telfair kept
it alive for some months, and on its death presented
it to the Zoological Society. In recent years a
writer has vividly described how in travelling by
railway through Madagascar he had a brief view of a
fossa standing on the metals ; as the train approached
it bounded off into the jungle. But little is known
about this animal, though a specimen was living in the

1 6 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

Jardin des Plantes in 1900; nothing at all is known
of the newly-born young.

The first example received at the London Zoologi-
cal Gardens was purchased on November 12, 1890,
and was figured in the Illustrated London News ;
it died on January 24, 1905, having lived for the
amazing period of fourteen years in the collection,
and the present writer inspected it on many occasions.
This individual showed none of the ferocity usually
assigned to the species, and was tame enough to
come right up to the bars, though it would probably
have severely bitten a careless bystander. The fossa
is an amazingly interesting beast ; its zoological posi-
tion and geographical distribution (Madagascar only),
its reputed ferocity, its rarity and its possible descent
from a line of long-extinct creodont ancestors — the
"last of the Mohicans "-—render it a most suitable
subject for a special monograph, or a learned article
in some zoological magazine.1

The ring-tailed lemur appears to have been
discovered by M. de Flacourt, the Director General
of the French East India Company; his interesting
"Histoire de la grande Isle Madagascar" was
published at Paris in 1661, and mentions the animal
as the "maid vari." The present species is the
Lemur catta of Linnaeus, who in 1 766 included it
under this name in the twelfth edition of his

1. The isolated geographical position of the Madagascar fossa renders
it comparable to the thylacine — the only large predaceous mammal of
Tasmania, and about the same size.

THE RING-TAILED LEMUR Ij

"Systema Naturae;" a specimen appears to have
been preserved in the famous museum of Sir Ashton
Lever, which was sold by auction in 1806.

Soon after the foundation of the menagerie in
connection with the Jardin des Plantes, there was
added to the collection a ring-tailed lemur which had
already lived nineteen years in Europe! Still active
and intelligent — being, doubtless, " old-fashioned "
enough from its long contact with civilisation — this
patriarch was allowed the free run of Cuvier's
laboratory,1 where it pried into everything with
monkey-like inquisitiveness, turning over the skins
of the animals which were being prepared to enrich
the museum. Unlike a monkey, which becomes
soured and savage with increasing years, it was
amiable enough with its human companions, climbing
upon their shoulders and even reposing in their laps.
This lemur disliked cold, basking in the sun or the
heat of the fire according to the season ; in winter it
solemnly warmed its hands before the blaze like a
human being, and burnt its face and whiskers rather
than retire from the welcome glow. It ate eggs,
bread, carrots, and fruit, and drank spirits ; perfectly
"at home from home," it used to sleep on a shelf
placed over the door, having previously taken a
good half-hour's exercise by leaping about the room.

One of the most attractive installations now

1. In an English work, the word " laboratoire " is translated
"conservatory," giving the reader quite a wrong impression. Cuvier's
original account, which I have consulted, rendersits meaning plain enough.

1 8 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

exhibited under the new management of the London
Zoological Gardens is the lemur apartment in the
anteater house — a building strangely enough almost
entirely devoted to prosimians. Here are the ring-
tailed lemur, the grey lemur, the black lemur, the
black-headed lemur, the broad-nosed lemur ; the
ruffed lemur in black and white, a mammalian
magpie, largest of all the prosimian race ; the slow
loris from India, and the Garnett galago from
Zanzibar. Strangely fond of sunshine, like their
forerunner of Cuvier's day, the ring-tails often sit
bolt upright, like kangaroos or suricates, stretching
out their hands to the warmth. Sometimes they
grasp the wires with their powerful hind feet, and
loll back at ease ; or crouch on the cage floor with
paws extended, head raised and tail stretched out
behind them. At dusk a continual chorus of grunts
and growls rises from the furry crowd behind the
wires. The galago flits along its perch like a shadow ;
the slow loris climbs clumsily, its pink nose and
hands almost human, and its rotund body resembling
that of a tiny bear. The black lemurs sit one behind
another on a branch, as if about to take part in a tug
of war ; the ringtail lemurs mew like cats and come
to the wires to be caressed. One could, indeed,
listening to the chorus in the fast-gathering twilight,
picture the thickets of Madagascar alive with dusky
forms twittering in the darkness, the harmless ghosts
of the primaeval forest.

THE RING-TAILED LEMUR 19

The young ring-tailed lemur is very much darker
than its parents. A very small male specimen (No.
3755A) preserved in the Royal College of Surgeons'
Museum is blackish brown all over, even the future
pale areas (such as the rings encircling the eyes)
being but little lighter than the rest ; the grey on the
face is, however, recognisable, and the rings on the
tail have appeared. For the first two months the
youngster clings underneath its mother ; it then
transfers itself to her back, but at four months begins
to leave its parent for short excursions, returning to
her if disturbed. At about five months old it is half
grown and is partly weaned ; the fur is then notice-
ably lighter than at birth. The ring-tailed lemur has
bred in this country, a young one having been born
on September 26th, 1905, of parents which had been
allowed some degree of semi-liberty. A second
example, which the writer has seen, was born in
May, 1907, in the Manchester Zoological Gardens.

THE OCELOT CAT

" I have wisht them farther off, when I have met them in the
woods • because their aspect appears so very stately and fierce."

Capt. William Dampier on the Ocelot, A.D. 1729.

Clever and cunning, strong-limbed and handsome,
the beautiful ocelot of Central and South America
occupies a place amongst its furred brethren com-
parable only to that held by the sable antelope
amongst ungulates, or by the Prevost squirrel
amongst the rodentia. As the clouded tiger is the
smallest of the big cats, so is the ocelot the biggest
of the small cats; and is indeed by no means an
animal to be lightly tackled, some individuals being
as large as a small leopard. It varies in size with
its geographical distribution, being small near the
Equator, and attaining its largest dimensions north
and south of that line. The small ocelots are about as
large as a European wild cat : as regards markings,
there are no two the same, and in addition each
individual, like the Cape hunting-dog, is differently
patterned on either side of the body.

The ocelot (Felis pardalis], though resembling a
leopard, has the legs and tail of variable length; the
latter, however, always measures less than the head
and body combined. Some specimens are stoutly
built, with broad heads and short legs; others are
"lanky, long, and lean." Wonderfully instable in

THE OCELOT CAT 21

coloration, a good series of museum skins exhibits
every gradation of hue and pattern, and quite a
number of sub-species might be made of this one
animal — already quite enough of a zoological puzzle.
All forms have the head and limbs dotted over with
small spots, two black stripes on each cheek, and a
band on the inside of the foreleg ; the body is marked
more or less distinctly with longitudinally arranged
blotches, and the tail is semi-ringed. The typical
ocelot is tawny yellow or reddish grey in ground
colour, handsomely streaked and blotched with
longitudinal chains of darker hue. The blotches are
margined with black, and enclose an area darker
than the general tint of the fur ; the under parts are
whitish. Note now the variations from this, the
typical form :—

(a) INTENSIFICATION OF COLOUR. The so-called
Felis melanura is the fulvous variety of the ocelot ;
in the brightness and clear-cut intensity of its
markings it recalls the normal female form of the
silver-washed fritillary butterfly. The fur of the
fulvous ocelot, itself richly coloured, is so crowded
over with intense black markings as to cause the
white underparts to stand out in brilliant contrast ;
the tail is, likewise, intense black. The present form
was first described in 1844 by Mr. Bell from a
specimen living in the London Zoological Gardens,
and Louis Fraser, the collector for Lord Derby's
museum, also figured it in his work "Zoologia

22 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

Typica." It is significant of the great instability of
these animals, that the very individual figured
altered a good deal in its markings before its death ;
hence the ocelot, if not the leopard, changes its spots!

(b) DIMINUTION OF COLOUR is similarly illustrated
by the var. picta — the "painted ocelot" of natural
history books — which is a large Central American
form. In this phase the spots are placed relatively
further apart, and the ground tint is not so brilliant
as in the typical race. The grey ocelots may
perhaps be included under this heading; of these, the
best known is the var. grisea, which sometimes
tends to whitish on the flanks, and is found in
Guatemala.

The difficulty of sorting these various cats is not
lessened by the presence, in the actual distributional
area of the ocelot, of a similar though distinct
species, the tiger cat (Felis tigrina). This animal
also varies greatly, having a bright fulvous variety
(the chati) with soft fur, and a dull grey one (the
margay) with harsh fur; the Brazilian kuichua (var.
macroura of Prince Maximilian of Wied) is a yellow
phase with a relatively long tail. In the writer's
opinion the term "tiger-cat" is most unfortunate as
applied to the Felis tigrina, a fine beast enough but
in beauty far inferior to the handsome ocelot,
especially the fulvous variety striking in its rich coat
and sable liturse. Felis tigrina might have suitably
been styled the " leopard cat" had not that term

THE OCELOT CAT 23

been already conferred on the Felis bengalensis of
South Eastern Asia. The tiger cat always has its
spots shorter than the ocelot ; they are often solid,
and never aggregated into chains.

A fine coloured plate of four ocelots, delineated by
the master hand of Joseph Wolf, will be found in
Elliott's "Monograph of the Felidtz" A handsome
specimen of the typical race has sprung upon a wild
turkey which lies, a dishevelled bundle of red bronze
and metallic green, in the strong grip of the wild cat.
Hard by a melanura ocelot is seen, standing with
uplifted paw as if about to dispute possession of the
prey; the captor, however, with snarling lip and
lashing tail asserts the right of conquest. A third
ocelot (var. grisea) stands reared up against a tree,
prying with cat-like curiosity to ascertain the cause
of the disturbance ; a fourth animal (grey and striped)
stands knee-deep in the long grass, its beautiful head
posed in a manner suggesting a waterbuck amid the
sedges of an African river. The foreground is
littered with feathers shaken from the luckless
turkey; a background of waving grasses, plumed and
luxuriant, completes a wonderfully vivid picture of
animal life.1

The ocelot ranges from Paraguay northwards into
Mexico and the south-western border of the United
States. Mainly nocturnal, it resembles the great

1. This plate might well have been styled "La Rixe" (the quarrel) after
the famous picture.

24 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

anteater in being exclusively a forest dweller ; it
chases its prey nimbly from tree to tree like a
miniature jaguar, and in the neighbourhoods of the
settlements makes havoc amongst the poultry. No
instance of even the large wild individuals attacking
man appears to have been recorded ; it is, however,
savage enough for its size, and children have been
severely mauled by "tame" ocelots. Moreover, if
two individuals are caged together the weaker one
is very liable to become the victim, and even the
repast of his cagemate ! These animals are said to
be daring enough to carry off game shot by a hunter
before his very eyes ; they seem to range with
impunity through very uncomfortable thickets, since
a specimen was obtained on the Rio Bravo whose
skin was fairly lined with cactus thorns, lying flat
and apparently setting up no inflammation.

The ocelot appears to have been first mentioned
by the Spaniard Hernandez, who styled it the
"catus pardus Mexicanus." He gives tlacoozelotl
and thalocelotl as the Mexican name, of which the
word " ocelot" is said to be a corruption; in some
parts of America this cat is known as the zorrillero.
The first specimens all seem to have been observed
in Central America ; Linnaeus described the animal
in the I2th edition of his "Systema Naturae" under
the name of Felis pardalis, and notices a Mexican
example. Since then the ocelot has often been
imported alive into this country ; indeed, one or two

THE OCELOT CAT 25

are now received by the wild beast merchants almost
every month, as may be seen by scanning their
advertisements in the Field. The first example in
captivity in Europe appears to have been an old and
savage specimen — savage perhaps because it was
old, since young animals are quite amenable to
kindness ; it was exhibited at Newcastle in 1788 and
is mentioned by Bewick. The first ocelots received
at the London Zoological Gardens seem to have
been the pair living in a temporary building in the
grounds in 1829.

In the Antwerp collection, some years ago, the
writer noticed a fine healthy ocelot which was kept
in the open air : it had a roomy yard for exercise, and
plainly demonstrated that even tropical animals can
stand, with considerable impunity, continual exposure
to the climate of Europe, and that the practice of
such "open air treatment" is far better than the old
unnatural method of cooping up animals in stuffy,
heated houses. The ocelot has twice bred in the
New York Zoological Park.

An ocelot once lived for about nine years in the
Calcutta Zoological Gardens. This result was
probably due to the care taken of it, the diet being
largely a natural one, including as it did a live rabbit
or guinea pig about once a week. The animal was
very tame, active, and playful, purring like a cat ; it
once, however, had an illness which in less experienced
hands might have proved fatal. It began with slight

26 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

cough and sneezing, and refused its food entirely for
three days ; at the end of that time, however, it
began to take milk and chicken soup. One portion
of this concealed half an ounce of castor oil ; the
ocelot soon began to mend, and at the end of a
fortnight was quite well.

Wilson, the American ornithologist, had a very
tame and playful ocelot in his possession; indeed
sometimes too playful, and rough in her play. On
one occasion she seized a chamois leather glove in
romping, tore it to pieces and instantly swallowed it,
the owner of the glove being unable to rescue it even
with both hands ! She was accustomed to sleep on
the back of a certain horse ; but having on one
occasion clawed her steed in settling down on his
hindquarters, was dislodged after a struggle, and
received a kick she never forgot. She occasionally
escaped and worked havoc amongst the poultry ; it
was noticed that when fed on milk and farinaceous
food her temper was better than when dieted on
flesh.

This animal (or another of Wilson's) when on
board the U.S. "Vandalia" developed an abscess
about the root of her milk teeth; she allowed herself
to be taken into a person's lap while the ship's doctor
extracted the tooth. This individual was most
useful in ridding the ship of rats ; leaping ten feet at
a single bound, she would kill her prey so quickly
that it had no time to squeak. When in the warm

THE OCELOT CAT 27

seas of the West Indies the "Vandalia" encountered
troops of flying fish, skimming along in the moonlight
like silvery birds. The ocelot was seen intently
watching them : one day she was missing, and it was
surmised that she had jumped after them and been
drowned.

A female individual about six months old was
imported into England in 1900. The little creature
was as a rule tame and playful as a kitten, dashing
about her very roomy cage at nightfall, and inviting
attention by a characteristic cry ; she soon learnt to
come when called " Puss ! Puss! " She delighted to
play with a broom, grasping it and allowing herself
to be dragged along the floor of the cage, her talons
still firmly fixed in her bristly plaything. This
animal was fed on fowls' heads, with an occasional
herring. One head sufficed her for the daily meal ;
more seemed to make her cross-tempered. From
the roughness and immaturity of her coat it seemed
impossible to say whether this animal was an ocelot
or a tiger-cat ; but it may here be mentioned that in
captivity the two animals behave much alike.

A tiger-cat kept many years ago at Paris delighted
to be stroked, and, like the individual mentioned
above, solicited attention by a short cry. Another
kept in South America by a priest named Noseda
was so tame as to be allowed its liberty ; it went
loose about the house, and slept on the skirts of his
clerical gown; the neighbours eventually killed it

28 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

because it raided their hen roosts. So abundant were
these tiger-cats that in two years Noseda took no
less than eighteen within a couple of leagues of his
pueblo. The animals soon become used to captivity,
and slept all day ; they were fed on live fowls, which
they quickly killed, seizing them by the head and
neck. The tiger-cats were dainty feeders, carefully
plucking the bodies before devouring them ; when
given cat's flesh they soon contracted mange, which
proved fatal. When wild, each pair of tiger-cats
seem to patrol a special area, like policemen on beat;
for it was found that when two had been taken, no
more would be trapped in that particular district.

.2

THE CARACAL LYNX

"I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start."

King Henry V. Act III. Sc. I.

Probably every nation under the sun has at one
time or another adopted the device of employing one
animal to hunt another. The Nineveh sculptures
represent trained dogs, fierce and eager for the chase ;
a tame hunting-leopard, as elsewhere mentioned,
appears on the monuments of Beni Hassan. In
India, otters have been taught to fish for their
masters ; the Chinese employ cormorants for the
same purpose ; saker and lanner hawks are still
flown at bustard and gazelle by the Saharan Arabs.
Even to-day, in England, enthusiasts go lark-hunting
with merlin, while the occupation of taking rats and
rabbits with ferrets is a humbler phase of the same
sport. One of the most interesting of these deputy
hunters — employed in India for coursing lesser
game — is the handsome and widely distributed
caracal lynx.

The caracal {Felis caracal} — karakal ( = black-
eared) of the Turks — siya gush of the Persians—
roi kat of the Boers — is found in India, Mesopotamia,
and Persia, and ranges all over Africa, from the
Cape to Cairo. From its peculiar zoological position,
it is a very interesting animal ; for as the Madagascar
fossa is half cat half civet, so is the caracal half
way between the true cats and the true lynxes. It
measures about eighteen inches at the shoulder, and

3<3 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

a large African example taped about four feet three
inches from the tip of the nose to the tip of the tail,
measured in the flesh ; the tail itself was about
thirteen inches long. The face is short and some-
what rounded ; the ears are pointed and slightly
curved (with concavity anterior) so that the tips
point directly upwards ; they are beautifully tufted
with pencils of black hair. The muzzle is bisected
by a cleft which, forming a hare lip, passes upwards
between the nostrils for about an inch, recalling a
similar groove in the muzzle of the thylacine of
Tasmania.1 The legs are longer than in the true
cats ; the tail is longer than in the true lynxes, and
slightly thicker in the middle than at either end.

The coloration of the caracal is variable, ranging
from reddish to dark brown, and there are probably
individual differences also. The ear tufts are,
however, always black ; but it seems to have hitherto
escaped the notice of naturalists that these black
ears are often frosted over with white, thus in some
specimens imparting a grey appearance to the pinna.

In several individuals recently studied alive by the
writer the muzzle was purplish suffused with black,
and a more or less well-defined dark line bisected
the forehead, like Burchell's linea faciem percurrens
in the Cape hunting-dog. The roots of the ears
were heavily semi-circled in black posteriorly, and

1. Rerishaw: "More Natural History Essays," pp. 216-232. The
thylacine is fully described and figured from a specimen then living in the
Zoological Gardens.

THE CARACAL LYNX 31

an ill-defined dusky line ran along the back. In
South African specimens the fur is more or less
suffused with purplish black, and when the tongue is
fully retracted (as in snarling) a black pigmented
space is seen on the floor of the mouth, just in front
of the tip of the tongue ; the eyes in these specimens
are very pale greenish yellow. Prof. Matschie has
proposed to separate the Algerian caracal as a
distinct form under the name of Caracal berberorum,
and some would also separate Asiatic from African
examples ; in any case, it appears that the African
ones are uniformly larger than their eastern brethren.
As already stated, the caracal is a connecting link
between the true cats and the true lynxes. Taking
the true cats first, one finds amongst the lesser
Felidce the very curious chaus or jungle cat {Felis
chaus) of India ; the chaus is, as it were, an incipient
caracal. The pupil of the eye is circular as in
lynxes, not linear as in cats — a very important
character ; then again the ears, though not frosted
as in the caracal, are black-tipped and semi-tufted
with long hair ; the tail is much shorter than in
typical cats. The colour of the fur ranges from
sandy grey to greyish brown, and some individuals
are distinctly tinged with red on the spine ; others,
again, have an indistinct dusky line along the back.
Yet, though half caracal, this strange beast has
several undoubted "cat" characters; the inside of
the forearm bears two stripes as in the ocelot, serval,

32 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

and other \x\\zfelidce', the tail, though shortened, is
ringed- — no lynx has a banded tail. Although some
chaus are pale-coloured, others are barred on face
and breast ; thus there is a wheel within a wheel, and
the chaus — the last of the cats — is so aberrant and
inconstant in markings as to suggest that the species
is undergoing evolution in the direction of the lynxes,
or at least of the caracal. The temper of the chaus
is fierce and courageous ; as a rule it is untameable,
and of several which the writer examined in captivity
none invited any friendly advances. Wolf has
executed a fine plate of this cat ; with blazing eyes
and twitching tail it strides out of a brake, carrying
a fire-backed pheasant in its mouth.

The true lynxes, on the other hand, resemble the
caracal in the shape of the skull, in their tufted
ears, in their longish legs ; the rufous colouration of
many individuals, and the variable amount of spotting
of the fur, perhaps also indicate affinity. The true
lynxes, however, have the face heavily ruffed with
a thick whisker not found in the caracal ; their bodies
are of much stouter build, and the tail is much
shorter ; hence they form quite a distinct group of
animals. Again, though the fur is often rufous like
the caracal's it is as frequently of a sandy grey
(European lynx), isabelline (Thibetan lynx), or dark
grey (Canada lynx) ; it may be distinctly dotted all
over with small black spots as in the pardine lynx,
or streaked in vertical dark lines, as in the fasciated

ISABELLINE LYNX.

Note the ruff round the face, the long legs, and short tail.

September 1901.

THE CARACAL LYNX 33

variety of the bay lynx. Naturalists as yet are by
no means agreed as to the number of lynx species
existing, so that much work yet remains to be done
in this direction. Unlike the caracal, the true lynxes
are unknown in Africa and India.

The caracal (in Africa at any rate) inhabits
mountainous yet fairly open country.1 From its shy
habits it is but seldom seen, even in the districts
where it occurs ; it preys on lesser antelopes and
hares, and is said to be able to spring up and strike
birds flying directly overhead. In 1903 the writer
passed through a good deal of the caracal country ;
it was exceedingly interesting to observe Africa's
rugged mountains, sparsely clad with rough vegeta-
tion, stretching for league after league towards the
Sahara, and even invading the burning desert itself.
The heated rocks and sand, the deep silence every-
where, seemed to suggest a world destroyed by fire ;
yawning ravines, doubly impressive in the deathly
stillness, and stony beds from which all moisture had
departed, added a savage picturesqueness to the scene.
The scrubby bushes which nourished the gazelles
seemed hardly capable of supporting a mouse ; many
birds of prey soared aloft as if temporarily "out of
work." Specht's figure of a pair of caracal in the
" Royal Natural History " gives a fair idea of the

1. It is interesting to compare the habits of the caracal with those of
the serval cat of the same districts. The self-coloured caracal inhabits
open country ; the spotted serval skulks among long grass and reeds
near rivers.

34 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

haunts of this species. The pose of the individual
in the foreground (represented as capturing a sand
grouse) is well rendered, though it would have been
better to have shown it a moment later throwing its
whole body, caracal fashion, over the bird to prevent
its struggles. The South African caracals are big
enough to be dangerous, and attack sheep and
goats like a leopard ; the stomach of one examined
contained the remains of a dusty ichneumon
{Herpestes pulverentulus] — a curious repast, one
would think !

A beautiful plate representing the caracal appears
in Elliott's "Monograph of the Felidce" A pair of
these animals is seen resting after pulling down a
large game bird. One caracal, handsome and dark
coated, lies curled up asleep like a cat ; the other—
a red-coloured beast — sits up on his haunches as if
meditating over his recent dinner. The ground is
littered with feathers, and some have floated on to
the neighbouring bushes, where they stick like
sparrows on a limed twig ; in the foreground is seen
a leg of the hapless quarry — a grim souvenir of
the feast.

The present species appears to have been the
Ethiopian lynx of Pliny, and was probably the animal
to which the term "lynx-eyed" was first applied ; it is
represented on the walls of tombs at Beni Hassan in
Egypt. The first scientific description of the animal
was that of Guldenstadt, who conferred upon it the

THE CARACAL LYNX 35

name of Felis caracal (Nov. Comm. Acad. Petrop.
I776).1 It has long been used in the East to chase
game; the Arabs and Persians employ it to hunt
antelope, peafowl, and demoiselle crane during
the cold weather, the animal being kept hooded
like a cheetah and then turned after its quarry
in the wheat and millet fields. The speed and
strength of the caracal is much greater than
would be expected. In Vigne's day (1842) many
of the Indian princes regularly kept caracal for
coursing. "The speed of the caracal, or Indian
lynx," observes Vigne, "is, if possible, quicker in
proportion than that of the chita." The same
traveller saw a caracal slipped at a grey fox, which
it ran into as a dog would into a rat. As regards
the strength of this lynx, Dr. Charleton relates that
he saw one fall on a hound, which it killed and tore
to pieces, though the dog defended itself to the
utmost.

Many years ago Commandant Loche received a
caracal from M. Rose, officer of the Bureau Arabe at
Biskra, in the Sahara Desert. It was gentle, playful,
and fond of being stroked; it used to lie on the
furniture, and especially on the beds, like a domestic
cat; in cold weather it crept inside the bed! Another
individual was equally tame, but of uncertain temper.

1. The Hunterian M.S. published by Owen contains an account of a
dissection of a "Shargossts (probably = siya gush or caracal); and the
Royal College of Surgeons' Museum contains a nearly complete caracal
skeleton, formerly labelled " Bones of a Shargoss " — hence, probably, the
same individual as in the MS.

36 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

It used often to lie in Mdlle. Loche's lap; one day
when she wished to put it down the spoilt thing
resented it and, turning savagely on her, seized her
arm with claws and teeth. Happily the Commandant
was at hand to intervene, or the consequences might
have been serious. Loche records a male caracal
from Barkadem, a female from Arba, and a young
one (sex not stated) from near Djelfa; these were all
placed in the museum at Algiers. He also gives
Colea, Biskra, Lake Halloula, and the vicinity of
Constantine as localities for the Algerian caracal.

The first specimen received into the Regent's
Park collection seems to have been the individual
which the Duke of Sussex presented in 1830.
Apparently the caracal must be taken young in order
to be tamed; the writer has seen some dozen
specimens, all either nervous, or savage, or both,
hissing loudly or growling with open mouth
(see illustration). Frequently pacing its cage in
the daytime, the caracal is not noticeably active at
dusk; several kept captive in their native India
were noticed to be asleep in the evening, when other
cats in the same collection were awake and lively.
Those in the Calcutta Gardens were fed on live fowls,
pigeons, and rabbits; a natural though somewhat
expensive diet.

THE BROWN HYAENA.

In spite of the rapid progress made in matters
zoological of late years many popular errors
respecting animals still persist. The magnanimity
of the lion is pure nonsense. The tiger is not more
blood-thirsty than the leopard, the jaguar, or even
the weasel. " Harmless" antelopes and deer have
before now turned furiously on their keepers.
Gorillas said to have been killed while charging are
found to have the shot-holes in the back. The
small-brained Indian elephant is not so superlatively
intelligent as the average writer makes out; the
bumps on his forehead indicate air cells and not
intellect. "Silly " sheep show true wisdom in
following the footsteps of a tacitly elected leader;
pigs are not fonder of wallowing in the mire than
rhinoceroses, buffaloes, or even some antelopes.
The various species of hyaena, though largely
carrion feeders, are not exclusively so; they are to
some extent distinctly carnivorous, attacking cattle
and even man, as will be shown in this Essay.
Ferocious and ravenous, grim and cowardly, the
hyaenas offer a character study of very great interest ;
three species are recognised, of which the striped
hyaena is both Asiatic and African, while the spotted
hyaena is African only. The brown hyaena is South
African chiefly; though its northern limit is at
present unknown.

38 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

The brown hyaena (Hytena brunnea) strandwolf of
the Cape Dutch — is much the rarest of the three
species. It stands about two foot six inches at the
shoulder, and measures about five feet eight inches
from the tip of the nose to the tip of the twelve-inch
tail. Like its congeners — and many African animals
of various families — it is much lower at the rump
than at the withers; it is clothed in long rough hair,
shaggy on the neck, back, and tail, though not
forming a distinct mane. The general colour is
greyish, heavily clouded with rich purplish black;
the face is blackish brown, and the ears are blackish
brown suffused with purple. The throat and sides
of the neck are dirty yellowish white ; the general
grey colour becomes yellowish along the spine1
The coloration of the tail seems to vary; Steedman
calls it uniform dark brown, but Sir Cornwallis Harris
describes it as black, tipped with a few red hairs.

A melancholy interest attaches to the strandwolf,
since it seems to be well on the way to extermination.
To the naturalist all forms of life, however uncouth,
are interesting and fascinating; and this hyaena,
equally with the vanished quagga and the all but
vanished black wildebeest, is a type of the glorious
South Africa that has been, of the days when Corn-
wallis Harris shot elephants on the site of Pretoria, and

1. The above description was drawn up from two living specimens
then before the writer ; there is probably much individual variation in
these hyaenas. Others have described the species as grizzled brown,
with dirty yellowish -white collar, sides and hips banded with deep vinous
brown, and black and white stripes on the legs.

I!

!* C

1

THE BROWN HY.^NA 39

when Gordon Gumming hunted giraffe on the site of
Mafeking. Unfortunately, the brown hyaena made
itself such a nuisance to the farmers by attacking
their flocks and herds that it has been almost
exterminated in Cape Colony ; like the Antarctic
wolf and the thylacine, it has been crowded out with
advancing civilisation. Brave when there is no
danger, cowardly in time of peril, pitilessly ferocious
to living things weaker than itself, the strandwolf
may well be styled the bully of the bushveldt ; and
its final exit will probably be contemplated without
tears by those most concerned in affecting it.

The early career of the brown hyaena, like that of
many historical personages, appears to have been
free from blame — perhaps from lack of opportunity.
Remarkable in its preference for the seashore, it
appears to have originally fed on Crustacea (much
like the crab-eating thylacine) occasionally feeding
on offal, such as the carcases of whales or seals. In
1652 the Dutch settlers landed at the Cape; with
advancing civilisation stockfarms were established;
the strandwolf and its spotted cousin promptly called
on the new arrivals, and soon acquired a taste for
mutton. In the daytime the hyaenas lay hidden in
the mountains or amongst the thick bush of the sand
veldt; but at night their dismal howls could be heard
rising in hideous cadence among the kloofs and
poortes of the hills. Remarkably daring, they
became a serious source of loss to the farmers;

40 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

perhaps realising that domestic cattle were easier to
find than carrion, and less trouble than hunting buck.
Not only sheep, but calves were killed by the strand-
wolves, and even men were not safe from molestation ;
unfortunately, the hyaenas were found to be by no
means confined to the coast, being quite abundant
far inland. Dogs and firearms were freely used
against the depredators, so that it was presently
noticed that the strandwolves near the Cape were
less bold than those further afield; but Lieutenant
Moodie, as late as 1835, states that they seemed to
increase with the population, their long dismal howls
being answered every night by the farm dogs.1

The hyaenas of the interior had a terrible reason
for their boldness. During a period of many years
the monster Chaka, king of the Zulus, had ravaged
the country with his sable battalions; the idea of this
black Napoleon being to unite his rabble forces into
one formidable army which would make him ''master
of the world." His troops consisted of one hundred
thousand men ; fifty thousand of these, marshalled
into regiments, were kept constantly under arms.
Every spring Chaka loosed his human tigers upon
neighbouring tribes in a savage war of extermination ;
kept to their work by the severest discipline, the
warriors invaded, routed and massacred throughout

1. "Valour and a whole skin" seems to have been the motto of the
hyaenas. Steedman relates that on one occasion these brutes, though
whooping all night round a cattle kraal, were prevented from attacking
by the incessant barking of the dogs.

THE BROWN HY^NA 4!

the whole country as far as St. John's River. As a
consequence of these wars thousands of corpses lay
rotting on the veldt, a feast for hyaena and vulture.
The unhappy natives being too distracted to molest
them, the strandwolves became exceedingly fierce
and dangerous; stimulated by plenty of human food
they even ventured to attack living persons. The
Rev. Theophilus Shepstone, a missionary stationed
in Mamboland, stated that in a few months he heard
of no less than forty attacks on persons asleep in
their huts. Even lighted fires did not deter the
strandwolves ; they passed the calves in the outer
yard (which at other times they would have readily
attacked) and drew sleeping infants so deftly from
under the mother's kaross that she was only
awakened by the cries of her child.1

A hyaena tore away part of the face of a little lad ;
and on another night the same beast carried a boy
right off, only a small fragment of the victim being
found. A third time the marauder appeared, and
seized a boy about ten years old. Thus terribly
awakened, the lad pluckily struck his assailant,
compelling him to let go. The hyaena again seized
him in his vice-like jaws, breaking his collar bone,
but the unfortunate lad still struggling, dropped him
again. With terrible pertinacity the animal once

1. A similar increase in the hyaenas of Somaliland was recently
noticed. On the cessation of hostilities against the Mad Mullah numbers
of these ravenous brutes wandered about the country, their occupation
gone.

42 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

more seized his victim by the fleshy part of the
thigh, and although pursued ran off with him for a
quarter of a mile. The boy's friends finally com-
pelled the hyaena to relinquish his prey ; before he
would do so the determined beast bit out a mass of
flesh and bolted with it, leaving the boy terribly
mangled, though happily the thigh was not broken.

A little girl about eight years old, reclining in the
cool of the day, was attacked by four strandwolves.
One seized her head, another her shoulders, and the
remaining two her thighs ; and although the people
of the kraal managed to drive them off, the hyaenas
left her so terribly mangled that her relations gave
her the choice of being killed by themselves or being
turned out into the bush. Happily she managed to
reach the mission station, and being kindly treated,
eventually recovered. Such then was the ghastly
legacy left by the wars of Chaka ; one almost sym-
pathises with Lieutenant Moodie when he says:
" I often employed myself in destroying hyaenas by
smoking them to death in their holes."1

A Hottentot having carelessly left a calf in a
field, two hyaenas attacked it. Lieutenant Moodie,
accompanied by the erring herdsman, hastened to
the rescue, finding however that the mother of the

1. After his assassination Chaka's body was left out all night to be
devoured, the remains of the tyrant thus receiving the same treatment
as those of his victims. In the morning the assassins, finding it untouched,
declared that the hyaenas would not devour a chief, and proceeded to
bury it, superstitiously closing up all the holes in the neighbourhood, lest
his spirit should emerge and pay them a visit !

THE BROWN HY.ENA 43

calf, assisted by another which had recently lost her
young one, had managed to beat off the hyaenas.
The unfortunate calf though terribly mangled
managed to get home, but died some time after-
wards. A strandwolf now in the Capetown Museum
is said to have killed three large calves before it
was shot.

Dr. Sparrman relates a story which will be of
service to temperance reformers. A drunken
trumpeter, overcome by strong waters at a convivial
meeting, was carried helpless out of doors and laid
down to cool. To him entered a hyaena — a spotted
one this time. Perhaps mistaking him for a corpse,
it ran off with him, so that the man woke to find
himself in an ugly predicament, being at very close
quarters with an antagonist capable of cracking his
bones like biscuits. Luckily the drunkard had
enough wit to blow his trumpet, thus scaring off the
hyaena. Since Sparrman's day this story has become
quite a venerable chestnut, reappearing in several
guises. Thus in one story " Piet the bugler" scares
off a lion, which had seized him when asleep, by an
impromptu solo on his bugle ; in another a man
seized by a tiger frightens him away by letting off
fireworks which he conveniently happened to have
in his pocket !

The brown hyaena was first described by Sparrman
in 1785 from a specimen taken at the Cape; but the
doctor supposed it to be the striped hyaena of North

44 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

Africa, as the strandwolf at that time was thought to
be entirely confined to the seashore. In 1835, how-
ever, Steedman found it some distance inland.1 To
Sir Andrew Smith is due the credit of recognising this
•hyaena not merely as distinct from the spotted species,
but also from the striped one (Hyczna striata)'? in
view of its indefinite markings, the term " clouded
hyaena " might well be employed to denote the
strandwolf. Sir Andrew kept one alive and published
a figure and description of the new animal in the
fifteenth volume of the Transactions of the Linnaean
Society. Steedman's book of travels also contain a
figure of this "new species of hyaena only known
from the description of Sir Andrew Smith." The
latter illustration will be familiar to many ; it has
doubtless done duty as a " striped hyaena" in many
a book on natural history !

The affinities of the brown hyaena are with the

1. It is remarkable that Belon in the sixteenth century called the
hyaena the " marine wolf " — almost the same title being afterwards
applied to the brown species by the Dutch settlers. One wonders
whether the brown hyaena was known to Europeans before Sparrman's
day ; but the very early naturalists often confused distinct forms together,
so that it is frequently difficult to recognise the actual species intended
in their descriptions.

2. Early in the nineteenth century, long before Sir Andrew Smith
described the brown hyaena, the Paris museum contained a remarkable
specimen which puzzled Cuvier. " There is in the French museum," said
he, "an Hyaena whose country is unknown, on which I am in doubt
whether to call it a variety of the striped Hyaena or to consider it a
distinct species ;" the italics are our own. The hairs of this animal were
long over the whole of the back and flanks, being whitish grey at the
base, blackish brown thence to the tip ; so that the whole fur appeared of
a uniform brown colour. There were some transverse whitish brown
bands on the fore legs and hind feet. If, as seems likely, this was really
a strandwolf, it should probably rank as the type specimen.

THE BROWN HYAENA 45

striped rather than with the spotted species ; this
depends on anatomical characters, and not merely
on the marking of the pelt. It is, however,
interesting to note that in Somaliland there occurs a
variety of the striped hyaena which, in its greyish
ground colour and purple-brown bands, forcibly
recalls the strandwolf; especially is this evident
when one has had, like the present writer, the
opportunity of comparing living specimens of either
animal side by side. This Somali hyaena is quite hand-
some, paradoxical though such a statement may seem.
A specimen presented to the Zoological Gardens
by Mr. Wm. Northrup Macmillan on September
21, 1903, was still living there in May, 1907. Now
young hyaenas are more clearly marked than their
seniors, whose coats tend to become uniform in tint;
hence this individual, which was at least three years
old and yet retained some brilliancy of markings, is
well worth passing notice. The animals of Somali-
land, by the way, seem to tend to special variation ;
witness the local form of the leopard (van nanopardus)
and the small variety of the wild hunting-dog, which
also occur in this region.

The first example seen in England was the specimen
brought over by Steedman ; it taped four feet four
inches from the tip of the nose to the root of the tail,
and stood two feet four inches at the shoulder ; the
tail (with hair) measured fourteen inches. Steedman
also had a young one, being one of three taken alive

46 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

in the Nieuweveld Mountains. The cub was
woollier than its senior, which it otherwise much
resembled. Specimens were received at the London
Zoological Gardens about 1832, a fine pair having
been presented by Mr. Hanmer Warrington ; these
were probably quite young animals, since they were
described as being smaller and lighter than the
striped hyaenas in the menagerie, and of a playful
disposition.

At present a fine pair is living in the London
collection, obtained from Carl Hagenbeck on
November I2th, 1900; they have thus been over
six years in England. When inspected by the
writer on May nth, 1906, these two individuals
were in splendid condition, as the rich gloss on their
coats testified. At about half-past twelve (noon) the
female was lying down ; the male, standing by, lazily
caressed her, nonchalantly biting his consort and
grasping the loose skin in his teeth to draw it out in
elastic folds that reminded one of the "india-rubber

man " at Barnum's. The shambling appearance of the
brown hyaena is much increased by its knock-kneed

appearance viewed from the front. The specimen
kept by Sir Andrew Smith had the curious habit of
regurgitating its food like a cow, to chew again.1

1. It may here be mentioned that the allied striped hyaena is very
quarrelsome in captivity and liable to mutilate animals in adjoining
cages if it gets the chance. If several striped hyaenas are kept together
they will begin to try and burrow holes in the floor. A specimen sent by
rail to Calcutta from West Bengal bit through the wooden battens of its
cage, and was found, on arrival at the terminus, comfortably seated
behind some bales of goods !

THE BROWN HY^NA 47

The brown hyaena still occurs near Grahamstown,
in the Fish River Bush. This is an immense tract
covered all over with scrub on hill and valley alike,
yet in spite of its vegetation singularly destitute of
water. Silent and sombre in spite of its green
appearance, it is intersected in places by deep
ravines ; stunted aloes bristle on the summits of the
kopjes, and the great candelabra euphorbias bedeck
the sides of the kloofs. The lilac flowers of the
speckboom and the white blossoms of the jasmine
add a touch of variety to the monotonous scene ;
after the spring rains also amaryllis and narcissus
shqot up in the arid valleys. The yellow flowers of
the prickly pear attract the lovely sunbirds, shim-
mering in rainbow hues ; green and yellow weaver
birds play among the branches of the river willows ;
golden cuckoos and hoopoes call from the depths of
the thickets. Kudu and bush buck, jackal and
warthog inhabit the Fish River Bush ; in the moon-
light the spring haas or leaping hare may be seen
browsing on the scrub, while the shy antbear forages
for its meal of termites. Leopard and serval, caracal
and wild dog range the bush for their prey ; here
also the strandwolf, once the tyrant of the colonial
farmers, finds tardy refuge from extermination.1

1. The spoiled hysenas inhabiting this district are sometimes taken
alive in wooden traps ten or fifteen feet square and baited at the end
opposite the door, which falls on the bait being loosened. It is said that
a farmer, having attacked a hyaena which had broken into his sheep
kraal, was badly wounded by the animal, and would probably have been
killed outright but for the arrival of help. Strychnine is also used in
destroying the hyjenas.

48 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

In view of the increasing rarity of the strand wolf,
it has been thought advisable to complete a census of
museum specimens ; for, though threatened men
may live long, threatened animals are apt to become
extinct with unlooked for rapidity almost before they
are known to be rare. The following examples of
the brown hyaena have been recorded :—

1. Steedman's adult specimen.

2. Steedman's young specimen.

3. Example in the South African Museum, Cape-
town, taken at Groenkloof in the Malmesbury
division of Cape Colony.

4. Specimen from the Nieuwveld near Beaufort
West, now in the South African Museum.

5. Female specimen in the same collection taken
in the Fish River Bush near Grahamstown.

6. Adult male and cranium obtained by Dr. Von
Horstock in Caffraria, on November 23rd, 1829, and
now in the Leyden Museum.

7. The Royal College of Surgeons' Museum
contains the skeleton of an old female which lived
over thirteen years in the Zoological Gardens.

8. 9. Two skulls at the College of Surgeons, one
of these from Gordon Cumming's collection.1

1. Probably referring to this individual, Gumming says " I started a
strandwolf, or fuscous hyaena, which I rode into and slew." This occurred
on February 12, 1844, near the Vaal River. It may here be mentioned
that happily the hunting trophies of Gordon Gumming were not all
destroyed by fire, as has been supposed, after they had been purchased
by Barnum ; a few good specimens of skulls and horns were bought for
the Gollege of Surgeons in 1866, and decorate one of the staircases in the
museum.

THE BROWN HY^NA 49

10, ii. Two young specimens were preserved in
the British Museum in 1843 ; they had been born in
Liverpool — perhaps in the Zoological Gardens
formerly existing there.

12, 13. Two examples in the Jardin des Plantes.
One of these, though faded, is a good example of a
" clouded " hyaena ; perhaps it is Cuvier's specimen.

Thus far the brown hyaena has been considered in
its relations to man ; its destructiveness to his cattle,
and ferocity towards his person. Let us now, setting
back the clock some centuries, picture it as it lived
on the sand-flats of the Cape, before the white man
began to colonise South Africa.

Scene, the seashore in Southern Cape Colony :
time, A.D. 1652. An immense tract of sand glistens
white in the hot sunshine. On one hand rise
mountains of hard metamorphic sandstone ; on the
other, the heaving of the sea reflects in opal
brilliance the glorious southern sky. Everywhere
the land shows impress of the heat and glare of the
African sun ; the hills, of a general greyish or
brownish tint, are covered merely with bushes, not
with trees ; the very foliage is dusted brick red, and
the landscape swims in a heat haze. A small gorge,
watered by a tiny cascade and gay with ferns, affords
a pleasant relief to the eye, as do also the brilliant
little sun -birds — veritable winged gems — which
hover over the snowy blossoms of the protea bushes.
The chattering of a troop of baboons rises dully on

50 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

the drowsy silence ; bold in the security of centuries,
swarms of rock rabbits (Hyrax) pop in and out of
their burrows, feed on the herbage, or bask in the
sunshine. Geometric tortoises with pretty embossed
shells wander here and there ; a large shrike with
yellowish breast sits on the topmost twig of a bush,
as if on sentinel duty. Right at one's feet — a broad
groove enclosing a narrower one — lies the sinister
track of a puff adder.1

Looking seawards, the vast sandy flats are seen
to be bored all over with the holes of the mole-rats ;
here and there a recently turned molehill shows damp
and dark against the background of shimmering
white. Glittering snowy against the brilliant blue
the Dominican gulls float and hover ; the booby
gannets dive headlong into the waves, and the close-
drawn cordon of cormorants drives landward, as
with a living net, hosts of silvery fish. A school of
porpoises play in the surf, rising and falling with
easy undulation ; a shoal of fish crosses their path, and
instantly the big fellows are snapping right and left,
in eager pursuit following their quarry to the very
shore of a little bay. The terrified fish leap upon
the strand, to lie flapping in silvery disorder ; one of
the porpoises over-eager rushes after them, to lie
high and dry surrounded by his victims. Vainly
does he struggle ; his heavy chest and feeble ribs, no
longer supported by a watery medium, collapse

1. The inside track is of course made by the reptile's tail.

THE BROWN HY/ENA 51

hopelessly ; gasping he dies — asphyxiated though
surrounded by air — amid a host of dying fish.
High in the ether appears a single soaring speck ;
then another, and another.

A rush of wings. An asvogel vulture has settled
near the carcase ; it is rapidly joined by others,
sweeping down like smuts from a chimney ; the air
is now full of swaying specks. Silently they
examine the carcase, hesitating lest any life yet
linger ; then they hop sideways to it, and begin to
peck out the eyes. Their beaks are too feeble to
penetrate the leathery hide of the porpoise ; they
must wait till it decomposes, or till further assistance
arrives. Far in the distance, with the declining sun,
rises the curfew wail of a jackal — sign of oncoming
night.

Three or four strandwolves suddenly appear at
the edge of the sand belt ; presently they steal
across towards the porpoise, and are joined by others
slinking through the bush. The banquet is soon in
full swing ; the tough hide, torn open by iron jaws,
is rent in fragments, and the luckless porpoise
entirely hidden by a growling, grunting, gorging
mass of hyaenas, jackals, and vultures. Now and
then a vulture hops aside, endeavouring to swallow
a huge morsel far too big for it ; many of the birds
are right inside the carcase. Night suddenly closes
on the scene, as if shut down by an extinguisher.

Morning. Not a sign remains of the feast save

52 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

a few fragments ; the hyaenas have cracked and
swallowed the very bones themselves, and the rising
sun looks down upon a deserted beach. The gulls
and cormorants ply their trade as yesterday, and
many yesterdays before. Inland, the baboons
chatter amid the kloofs ; the hyrax youngsters play
like kittens in and out of the rock caves. Black
rhinoceroses, active and agile, climb Table Moun-
tain ; hippopotami bellow over the future site of
Capetown. The beautiful blaauwbok antelope — now
alas! extinct — pastures with springbok and bontebok
in all the southern valleys ; the craggy uplands
harbour strong troops of Cape zebras, wary and
and surefooted, true equine mountaineers.

Never comes the trader, never comes the European flag
Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer
from the crag.

So it has ever been, through the long centuries ;
shall it not continue so to the end ?

A sail appears on the horizon, then another and
another. It is the Dutch under Van Riebeck,
coming to found a colony at the Cape of Storms.
Slowly the clumsy vessels make the land, harbingers
of European civilisation. The anchor rattles over
the bows, disturbing the peace of centuries. The
white man has come to South Africa.

It is the beginning of the end.

THE WHITE COMPANY.

Polar animals in winter dress.

Natural History Museum, South Kensington

1. Arctic fox

2. Arctic hare.

3. Ermine.

4. Ptarmigan.

THE ARCTIC FOX.

The beautifully mounted group of animals seen in
our illustration represents certain species of mutable
coloration in their winter dress. A white hare reclines
at ease accompanied by a couple of ptarmigan:
sheltered under a rock, two more ptarmigan are
squatted, apparently regardless of the lissom stoat
working its silent course through the snow in close
proximity. Above them all an Arctic fox stands on
an artificial rock adrip with icicles ; his sharp muzzle
and bushy tail recall the toy Pomeranian dogs so
often kept as house pets. The whole group is
exceedingly interesting, and well worth an actual
inspection as a true work of art.

The Arctic fox (Cants lagopus) — terienniak and
kaka of the Greenlanders — is structurally remarkable
for its short muzzle and its rounded ears, for the ruff
of hair on the cheek, and for the woolly sole with
which its feet are effectually shod, like a worsted
stocking on an old lady's foot in frosty weather.
This fox is also unique amongst its congeners in
exhibiting a seasonal change of coat. Moderately
long in summer, the fur is then brown or dull
rufous on the head, back and tail, becoming yellowish
white below ; the legs are brown, and the underfur
is bluish grey. White and also grey hairs are
sprinkled in the pelage, which is sometimes entirely

54 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

pervaded by the bluish tinge above mentioned, thus
constituting the animal a "blue" fox. A living
specimen examined by the writer on May 12, 1906,
was brown all over with a bluish tinge on the cheeks ;
the median area of the face, the ears, and the feet
were dark brown. The intensity of tint gradually
paled from before backwards, and the tail and a
patch on each buttock was quite light-coloured.
This animal had a white patch under the chin, and
a few white hairs were sprinkled in the coat.

In winter the fur is longer and thicker ; though
still grey at the roots, the individual hairs become
tipped with white. The white hairs originally
sprinkled through the coat also increase in number ;
so that with the gradual substitution of white for
grey in the other hairs, the little animal in his snowy
winter coat bears small resemblance to the dusky
fellow of June. All the foxes do not, however,
change colour at the same season, and some do not
assume the winter coat at all ; thus Fischer and
Pelzeln noted grey foxes as late as December 27,
though they saw the first white one as early as
November 21. l Many individuals retain even in
midwinter a little duskiness on the snout ; the white
fur is patched here and there with lemon yellow, and
a specimen now in the Natural History Museum
(taken in Discovery Harbour, Grantland, by the

1. Foxes which remain " blue " have the best pelts from November till
the end of February ; after which time the fur begins to turn brown and
later almost yellow.

THE ARCTIC FOX 55

Arctic Expedition of 1878) still exhibits some lemon
yellow about the head. In April and May, according
to Steller, the foxes begin to shed their long fur ; so
that by midsummer they are waistcoated, as it were,
in the underlying wool.

Widely distributed throughout the Polar regions,
the present species is a partial migrant, living in
summer high up among the stony d&bris on the
mountain side, and in winter descending to range
the seashore. The Arctic fox is an expert climber ;
daring and surefooted, it pillages the cliffs, causing
great destruction of seafowl and their eggs ; while
well-worn fox paths may be seen on the banks
of the salmon streams. This fox pounces on the
lemmings — curious rat-like little rodents — as they
pop out of their holes to feed some eight hundred
feet up in the snow and mist ; in the dismal Polar
night it sneaks after the white bears to devour their
leavings. Ptarmigan and hares inland, carrion,
shellfish, and crustaceans on the seashore, contribute
to the bill of fare ; small fish are attracted by the
fox dabbling its tail in the water, and promptly
secured. In the winter the unbroken ice allows
the animals to wander to the islands off the
coast, and sometimes, breaking up suddenly, carries
the unfortunate beasts off to sea. In hard winters
numbers of razorbills, searching vainly for water,
fall down upon the ice and are devoured by the
foxes.

56 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

In common with many other animals, the present
species is sharp enough to provide against a rainy
day by burying anything which it does not im-
mediately require. The food is hidden under the
snow, which the fox presses down upon it with its
snub nose. Regular caches of provisions have been
found, twenty, thirty, or even fifty lemming being
packed away together, all killed by a bite in the
brain, and perfectly preserved in the icy atmosphere
as in a natural refrigerator. Although several feet
of snow may conceal the hoard, the fox is said to
readily return to the spot to dig out his dinner ;
several caches may exist in different parts of the
country, yet all are visited with a certainty little
short of marvellous. In this connection one may
recall the story of the dog fox kept by Captain Lyon ;
unable to bury his dinner under the snow, the animal
employed a substitute by coiling over and over it
the chain by which he was secured. Perfectly
satisfied, the animal then walked away, of course
uncoiling the chain ; he repeated the experiment
with the same result. Again and again — some five
or six times in all — did the fox struggle with the
problem ; at last the philosopher lost his temper,
and settled it for ever by swallowing the meat !

The Arctic fox is one of the few carnivora which are
of sociable habits ; twenty or thirty burrows may be
found together, and the foxes also make long tunnels
in the snow. The young are born in June, and are

THE ARCTIC FOX 57

said to be nine or ten in a litter; all the cubs are born
" blue," but those which will eventually turn white
in winter are lighter than the others. As they grow
older the future white foxes become yellow ; those
which remain permanently blue alter but little with
advancing age.

The present species, together with the northern
sea-cow, was first discovered by Bering's party, who
in 1741 were shipwrecked on the Commander
Islands in the North Pacific. The story of these
luckless mariners has been elsewhere related j1
suffice it to say that during their involuntary sojourn
the sailors had but too ample an opportunity of
studying the Arctic fox. Impudent, inquisitive, and
cunning, the animals broke into the huts both by
day and by night, not only stealing provisions but
committing all kinds of senseless thefts, such as
purloining knives, sticks, and clothes. Every
movement of the party was watched with insatiable
curiosity ; the foxes accompanied the crew on their
journeys, and even dared to snatch flesh from the
hands of those who were flaying dead animals. At
night the foxes came round the sleeping camp,
stealing the very nightcaps of the sailors and the
gloves that lay under their heads; and caused more
serious annoyance by crowding about the sick and
infirm, so that they could scarcely be kept off. In the
intervals of business, so to speak, the foxes patrolled

1. Renshaw : "More Natural History Essays" pp. 157-8 and 159-60.

58 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

the beach, searching for carcases amongst the
sleeping seal herd. If a body was found they tore
it to pieces and dragged the fragments away ; what
they did not eat immediately was buried under
stones, but anything that the crew buried was sought
out with tireless patience and finally grubbed up
with exasperating success.

Irritated by the continual annoyance, the sailors
killed the foxes right and left ; so daring were the
animals that they could easily be enticed within
sticking distance by holding out a piece of flesh.
Steller, who accompanied the party, states that he
slew over two hundred with his own hands, and that
on the third day after his arrival he clubbed in three
hours over seventy foxes, whose skins he utilised as
a covering for his tent. In short, when the party at
last left the Commander Islands, in a craft of their
own manufacture, they took with them a valuable
cargo of furs (including many fox-pelts) — a substantial
compensation for the miseries which they had under-
gone. The fur industry of the Northern Pacific may
be said to date from 1741 ; for many subsequent
voyagers fitted out expeditions to hunt (amongst
other animals) the valuable white foxes.

The present species was the Canis lagopus
described by Linnaeus in the twelfth edition of his
" Systema Naturae" published in 1766; Pennant
also figured the animal fairly well as plate 162 of his
" History of Quadrupeds," the dark summer coat

THE ARCTIC FOX 59

being quite recognisable. The Arctic fox was
apparently represented in the museum of Sir Ashton
Lever.

At the present day the Arctic fox is an animal of
considerable commercial importance, by reason of
its valuable fur. Blue pelts are the most esteemed,
especially when nearly black — a rare form ; these
summer skins fetch, or used to fetch, as much as £i
apiece at the annual sales in Copenhagen, while in
Greenland they fetch two rigsdaler (45. 6d.) as against
three marks (is. i^d.) for white skins. In S.W.
Greenland the coast supplies blue foxes mostly, the
white ones being commoner in the north and on the
north and east coasts ; but the blue foxes, even in
winter, seem to be commoner than the white ones,
since Mr. R. Brown, in 1868, stated that 3,000 blue
and only 1,000 white skins were annually taken in
Greenland, and a return for forty years showed an
average of ten blue to seven white. The Esquimaux
take these animals in an ingenious trap made of
stones, and shaped like a small arched hut. A single
square aperture is situated on the top of the trap,
and is closed — apparently securely — by a platform
of whalebone. The fox stepping on to the platform
to reach the bait is unceremoniously lowered through
the skylight, while the elasticity of the whalebone
springing back allows the trap to be instantly re-set
for a fresh victim. Captain Lyon states that he
once captured fifteen foxes, one after the other, in

6O NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

the same trap in the short space of four hours ; but
of some kinds of traps, at any rate, the animals are
suspicious enough, and may leave them alone all the
winter, although set near a regular and well-frequented
track. Sometimes the fox is sharp enough to steal
the bait without paying the penalty; " It is a common
occurrence," observes Dr. Rae, "for the fox to make
a trench up to the bait, seize it, and permit the charge
to pass over his head."

THE PACIFIC WALRUS.

" I write ' the walrus of Behring Sea ' because this animal
is quite distinct from the walrus of the North Atlantic and
Greenland, differing from it specifically in the most striking
manner."

Mr. H. W. Elliott, on the Pacific Walrus, 1873.

The sun shines steadily upon the burnished
surface of the Polar Ocean. Above, a sky of
brilliant blue ; seawards, a gently heaving surface,
calm as a mill-pond ; landwards, a rugged shore,
backed by snow-clad hills, which reflect in creamy
brightness the welcome rays of the sun. Prone in
an icy channel lies the carcase of a rorqual, beclouded
with seagulls ; some twenty polar bears and a crowd
of white foxes are tearing and dragging at this
welcome find. A small group of sea-lions bask in
the sunshine, and away on the hillside a few specks
indicate a troop of caribou deer. The animals are
too far off to make any audible sound ; the world is
"dumb with snow;" around and over everything,
like an invisible pall, hangs the silence of the Arctic.

A sound, like the deepest of sighs, rises from the
surface of the sea ; a huge black object has appeared
in the opal water. A faint vapour ascends from
unseen blow-holes ; and with a whisk of his broad-
fluked tail, the whale descends into the abyss.
Again silence. A few petrels flit over the heaving
waters. Now a tiny breath of vapour appears just

62 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

above the waves, then another, and another. A
number of dark objects are seen swimming well and
strongly towards the shore. Then, as the animals
crowd up towards the beach, the sea is alive with
savage-looking, spouting, bellowing heads. For a
moment the water boils in swirling commotion; then,
waddling and grunting, the beasts quit the water,
huge, hairless creatures, battle-scarred and heavily
armed with long white tusks. Tediously they jerk
their dripping bodies over the foreshore, and in a
dense-packed mass, compose themselves to sleep—
a herd of Pacific walruses.

The Pacific walrus (Odobcenus obesus] attains a
total length of twelve to fifteen feet, a girth of about
twelve feet, and approximate weight of two thousand
pounds; the skin alone, thick and heavy as a giraffe's,
weighs from two hundred and fifty to four hundred
pounds, and is two or three inches thick on the neck
and shoulders. The head of this species is remarkably
flat ; seen from the front, the massive bony sockets
of the tusks give a curious square appearance to the
muzzle, while the true cranium behind rises in a gentle
dome that detracts but little from the quaint, almost
geometric construction of the skull. As in the
hippopotamus, nostril, eye, and ear are situated near
the top of the head ; the nostrils are oval in shape
and open directly over the muzzle. Resembling in
general outlines a clumsy seal, the Pacific walrus has
the neck and shoulders so thickly overladen with

THL PACIFIC WALRUS 63

blubber as to dwarf the head and flippers to medium
proportions. The tusks measure from ten inches to
two feet in length, and weigh from five to fifteen
pounds ; they are long, thin, and convergent, and a
short bristly moustache adorns the lip from which
they spring. Young pups are black ; young adults
are brown ; old animals become almost hairless, and
the dark yellowish-brown hide, wrinkled like that of
a rhinoceros, is lined with red veinings and clotted
over with scurvy patches. The Pacific walrus has
long been confounded with the Atlantic species, but
the researches of naturalists have shown the following
differences between the two forms : —

PACIFIC WALRUS. ATLANTIC WALRUS.

1. Muzzle broad. Muzzle narrower.

2. Skull broader in front Skull narrower in front

than behind. than behind.

3. " Whites" of the eyes Eyes red and bloodshot.

coffee-brown.

4. Moustache short. Moustache longer.

5. Tusks long, thin, and Tusks shorter, stouter,

convergent. and divergent.

In addition to the above there are also important
osteological differences between the two animals.

The present species inhabits the Northern Pacific
and the adjacent coasts of Asia and America ; to-day
it is rapidly tending towards extinction. Bidding
fair to follow the huge rhytina or sea-cow of the same

64 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

regions, it may possibly have been first discovered
by Steller, the original describer of the sea-cow and
the Arctic fox ; but this seems doubtful, and perhaps
the credit should be assigned to Captain Cook, who
found this walrus swarming in Bristol Bay.1 Huddled
together on the ice like pigs in a sty, the walruses
had a rough and ready method of mounting sentry.
Each individual before dropping off to sleep would
prod his neighbour with his tusks; the second animal
waking up would grunt sleepily, and in his turn give
a dig to a third one before composing himself anew
to slumber. This wireless telegraphy was gradually
communicated through the whole herd, like buckets
passed at a fire. The majority might be fast asleep,
heads happily pillowed on one another, yet in the
huge herd which lay like a mass of dirty snow on the
icefield there would always be one or two animals
awake. When alarmed the walrus set up a loud
bellowing ; the great armed heads swung round and
the close-packed ranks tumbled over each other in
haste to reach the sea. The braying of a herd of
walrus is said to be distinctly audible at a distance of
several miles.

Curiosity is a strong point in the character of both
the Pacific and the Atlantic walruses ; the earlier
voyagers found them following close to the boat,

1 . The name of the first European to meet with Odobcenus obesus seems
to be unknown. Thus in 1786 G. Pribylov, a mate in the service of a
swan -hunting company, discovered one of its haunts in the islands which
bear his name ; but even he found signs— pipe, brass knife-handle, and
traces of fire — that indicated that he was not the first to land there.

THE PACIFIC WALRUS 65

savage-looking and numerous, yet sinking like a
flash if alarmed.

" Rude Heiskar's seals through surges dark
Will oft pursue the minstrel's bark."

Quite so ; but perhaps they would follow it as
closely without any orchestral performances. The
appearance of so many armed and moustachioed
heads round a boat might well unsettle the nerves
of men only provided with muskets ; yet it is
said that unless molested these sea-horses are
peaceable enough. Wounded walruses are both
brave and ferocious — small blame to them :
from their great strength and activity in the water
they are most dangerous antagonists, readily thrusting
their tusks through the bottom of a boat, or tearing
men almost in two with a stroke of their natural
sabres. In time of danger the cows take their young
under their flippers, and endeavour to escape with
them ; the bulls do the fighting, and it must need a
stout heart to combat a rush of infuriated beasts,
which try to capsize the boat by hooking their tusks
over the gunwale, bellowing as if demented, while
the sea boils with their monstrous bodies as big as
horses.1 At the end of September and in October
the walruses are said to congregate in such numbers
at the mouth of Nagsugtok Fiord that the kayakers,

1. In 1869 a boat's crew were pursued to an island by a herd of walrus,
which actually blockaded them in. Serious consequences would have
ensued had the infuriated animals swarmed on the beach to press the
attack.

66 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

even when several together, dare not pass, and hence
postal communication between North and South
Greenland is entirely cut off!

The Polar bear attacks the walrus calves and kills
them with a blow of his paw ; sometimes, however,
the older ones catch Bruin in the water and combine
against him. The fight is one-sided enough. The
walrus are well armed with ivory daggers ; their
bodies are cuirassed in tough hide ; and they also
have the advantage of numbers. Swimming far
better than their enemy, they drag him under water
and tear him to pieces with their tusks. The orca
or killer — a black and white grampus fully described
in a previous work1 — is a ravenous creature which
includes infant walrus in its bill of fare. Occasionally,
however, it is mortally injured by a cow walrus whose
young it has butted off her back and swallowed.
Against one enemy — man — alas ! no courage avails ;
and since the carcase of every bull is worth about
;£i2. i os. od., there seems little chance of the
present species surviving much longer. Tusks, oil,
and hide are alike exceedingly valuable, and the
luckless animals have been pursued with a hearty
appreciation the reverse of consolatory to the
naturalist.

The history of the Pacific walrus is dismal reading
enough. Captain Cook found it abundant in
Bristol Bay, Alaska; in 1821 a Russian named

1. Renshaw: "More Natural History Essays," pp. 175—176.

THE PACIFIC WALRUS 67

Hiilsen observed hundreds of thousands in Bering
Straits. Fifty years later the animal was still
abundant in Bering Sea and Southern Alaska ; but
about this date the crews of the whalers began to
hunt walrus in July and August, whilst waiting to
attack their larger quarry, and since the walrus
" fishery " had already been prosecuted for many
years, the consquences were very serious. Some
years ago it was computed that over twelve thousand
animals were being annually killed, besides those
slain by the natives ; six thousand being yearly
sacrificed in Bering Straits alone ! Shot with rifle
and musket, speared and harpooned, the unfortunate
beasts present a ghastly record of destruction com-
parable only to the massacre of herons by the Florida
plume-hunters, or the reckless destruction of South
African game by the Boers. One almost already
seeks language in which to write the epitaph of the
Pacific walrus.

Sad as it is to contemplate the threatened loss of
a fine species, the destruction of human life is yet
more harrowing. The coast natives are entirely
dependent on the walrus for food, tools, and building
materials ; for huts and boats ; for dog-harness,
fishing tackle, and money (material for barter) — nay,
for life itself. In those icy regions the walrus is to
the Esquimaux what the American bison was to the
Red Indian, and what the reindeer is to the Lapp.
In the winter of 1878 it became grimly evident that

68 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

the extermination of the walrus meant the exter-
mination of the natives. Far out on the ice the
whaling crews were destroying in thousands the only
food of the starving inhabitants. Half of the people
of Lawrence Island and one third of the population
south of St. Lawrence Bay died from sheer famine ;
despairing mothers took their emaciated children to
the burying ground, and either strangled them or
left them to die of cold. Surely in all the grim
history of Polar voyaging the red Arctic sun has
looked down upon no sadder tragedy !

In concluding this almost obituary notice of the
Pacific walrus, it is pleasant to recall that, in one spot
at any rate, the species receives but little molestation.
Walrus Island — one of the Pribylov group — is a lava
rock off the coast of Alaska, less than a quarter of a
mile long, and but a few hundred yards wide — less
than five acres in extent — yet here several hundred
walrus lie closely packed on the inclement basalt,
their breath rising like a sea fog in the icy air.
Amongst themselves, the walrus are said to be
almost good-tempered, blows being given and
received with perfect amiability ; this is well, since
in quarrelling the animals might, like the American
travelling by railway in England, run right off the
tiny little island ! Once a year only — in June and
July — is this sanctuary disturbed ; the natives, laden
with tubs and baskets, visit this rock to collect the
eggs of the Lomvia arra.

THE PACIFIC WALRUS 69

Picture then the Pacific walrus in its northern
home. The low outlines of Walrus Island loom
indistinctly through the thick muggy atmosphere of
Bering Sea. The grunting of thousands of lomvia
is borne upon the icy air ; swaying in long files,
multitudes of loons sit on the water. There are
hundreds of thousands of other seafowl — cormorants,
auks, and gulls ; the shore of the rock is encompassed
by a thick belt of birds standing like so many bottles,
grunting and quarrelling; while their eggs lie every-
where, and frequently roll off into the sea. The
walrus themselves lie in huge crowded masses, their
immense blubber-laden shoulders contrasting oddly
with their flat heads ; the old males with hides almost
bare, long drooping tusks, and bristly moustaches,
are veritable warriors of Neptune. Here in the
driving sleet and heavy mist the Pacific walrus
enjoys an ideal home. Plenty of food is to be found
in the shell-fish, or in the bulbous roots of the
seaweeds which encumber the bays of the mainland ;
the vast icy water gives ample room for swimming
exercise, no hardship to an animal clad in so warm
an undervest of blubber ; tired of action, it can repair
to the isolated refuge of Walrus Island, whose low
flat surface, but a few feet above the waves, gives,
if required, a speedy "emergency exit " to the water.
The walrus do not seem to attack the bird popula-
tion ; indeed, the glaucus gulls breed in the very
interior of the island, among the early close-growing

70 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

grass. Unfortunately, the males only inhabit Walrus
Island ; the females breed on the ice and never come
down to the Pribylovs. The reckless destruction
which has been waged for long years still threatens
these interesting creatures, and only too much
emphasis must be attached to the words of the
writer who, in 1879, accompanied the walrus hunters
to Cape Lisburne : "I advise all natural history
societies and museums to get a specimen while they
can."

Extinctus amabitur idem.

THE EUROPEAN BISON.

' * Awake again I say all men
Be merry as ye may,
For Harry our King has gone hunting
To bring his deer to bay."

So runs the jolly lilt of an old hunting song dating
from the time of bluff King Hal ; one can picture
him plumed and spurred, galloping after his hounds
through the glades of Windsor Park, past H erne's
Oak all gnarled and riven, and toiling up the height
near the castle with a gay company clad in Lincoln
green. Hunting scenes indeed are deeply woven
into the fabric of English history ; videlicet William
Rufus lying arrow-slain, a huddled heap in the New
Forest bracken; and James I. hare-hunting at
Royston, in happy ignorance of the impending
Gunpowder Plot. England of to-day retains but
little of the old romance ; but the Continent of
Europe yet harbours many fine beasts of the chase.
The burly lynx of Norway, ambushed on the snow-
covered pine boughs; the brown bear nosing after a
square meal in the Russian forests ; the great elk in
the birch woods of Scandinavia ; and the reindeer
patrolling the lichen-clad wastes of Lapland, are
all cases in point. Wolf and mouflon, ibex and
chamois are all interesting ; preeminently is this the
case with that magnificent survival of Pleistocene
times, the great bison of Lithuania and the Caucasus.

72 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

The European bison (Bos bonassus] wisent of the
Germans — zubr of the Russians — stands about six
feet high at the shoulder, rand measures about 10 feet i
inch from the tip of the muzzle to the root of the tail.
The weight of an adult specimen is at least up to
1,700 Ibs. Humped on the withers and semi-maned
on the shoulders, neck, and chest, it differs from the
American bison (miscalled " buffalo") in its larger
horns, longer legs and tail, and more powerful hind
quarters : the elevation of the withers, although
noticeable, is less than in the Transatlantic species,
and they are less luxuriantly clad in curly hair. The
eye sockets in both animals are tubular ; the colour
of the European bison is black-brown on the head,
dark brown on the neck and shoulders, and paler
brown on the rest of the body. About May this
great beast presents a very ragged, untidy appearance,
the long winter robe being almost shed ; stray wisps
of wool, scattered over the hide, reveal the smooth,
mouse-coloured coat beneath. The tongue, palate,
and, it is also said, the roasted meat of this bison are
of a bluish colour ; in the wild state it exhales an
aromatic scent, especially about the head. The
longest recorded horns measure 8j^ inches along
the outside curve, with a basal girth of 12^ inches.1

Once widely distributed through Spain, Switzer-
land, Germany, Russia, and Poland, the bison as a

1. A bison cow with unequal horns was shot in the Caucasus in 1895 ;
length of right horn 15 inches, left 17 inches ; circumference at base 7 in.,
greatest span 10^ in. ; tip to tip 2£ in.

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THE EUROPEAN BISON 73

truly wild animal is now confined to the rugged
district of the Caucasus ; a herd under the protection
of the Russian Government is maintained in the
famous forest of Bialowicsa, in Lithuania. As far as
can now be ascertained, the animal appears to have
always associated in small bands rather than in
herds ; this would consort better with its woodland
habitat, whereas the vast prairies once covered by
its American cousin gave ample scope for the
massing together of thousands of individuals. In
summer the European bison frequents low-lying
thickets in swampy situations, where it can bathe
and wallow; in winter it inhabits the densest portions
of the elevated pine woods, climbing readily about
the mountain sides.1 At dawn the bison descend
to drink at the forest springs, and then begin to feed
slowly up hill ; in spite of their great weight they
gallop well, carrying their heads close to the ground
like antelope ; they are also good swimmers. The
voice of the European bison is a deep, short grunt.
Young animals resemble the calves of the American
species ; they are born at all seasons, and generally
do well even in cold weather.

M. Dolmatoff has vividly described how on
July 2Oth, 1846, he and his party came upon a troop
of bison in the forest of Bialowisca. The weather
was magnificent, the sky calm, not a breath of wind ;

1. Prince Demidoff records bison tracks in the snow at 8,000 feet;
Radde met them at 7,600 feet.

74 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

the older animals lay chewing the cud in a sequestered
valley, while the youngsters romped about, playing
amongst themselves and sending up clouds of sand.
At the first note of the horn the troop as by magic
bounded to their feet, eyes and ears alert ; the calves
pressed timidly against their mothers. When they
heard the yelping of the dogs, the bison hastily
placed the young ones in front and, themselves
acting as rear guard, took to flight. The beaters
receiving them with yells and blank powder, the
older animals then charged furiously through
their assailants, who slipped behind the tree trunks.
The foresters managed to hold a three months calf;
but another of fifteen months upset the eight men
who seized him, and made off. Several others were
taken on this occasion ; they were required for the
London Zoological Gardens and elsewhere, it having
been found that adult animals could not survive in
captivity.

A curious plant — the zubr grass — with an entirely
green blade — grows in the Caucasus forests ; it
exhales a remarkable scent, half musky half violet,
and imparts this odour to the bison which feed on it.1
Bison are also fond of the wide-leaved onoclea
(Onoclea struthiopteris) a small plant growing in the
woods ; they feed on ferns, on the bark of various
trees such as the birch and rowan, and on tree

1. The scent of the zubr grass is probably due to the presence of
benzole acid.

THE EUROPEAN BISON 75

lichens. The aromatic odour imparted to the bison
by the zubr grass reminds one of the perfume exhaled
by many antelopes, such as eland, blesbok, etc.

The European bison appears to have first been
noticed by Julius Caesar, who mentions it in his
account of the fauna of the Black Forest — De Bello
Gallico, Lib. VI. 21. " Hi sunt magnitudine paulo
infra elephantos" he says of the wild oxen; although
in reality very much less than an elephant, the
magnificent proportions of the animals must have
strongly impressed the Romans. Aristotle also
notices the "bonasus." It inhabited the mountainous
country between Paeonia and Media ; was as large
as an ox, but with a shorter and thicker body ; had
the neck and shoulders clothed with a reddish gray
mane, which overhung the eyes ; the rest of the body
was light-coloured. The Cossack-like Pseonian
hunters were probably the originals of the legendary
centaurs. According to Aristotle, however, the
horns were directed downwards and curved in a
circle ; Cuvier has sagaciously shown that this latter
feature was doubtless an individual abnormality,
adding that the Paris Museum at the time of writing
actually possessed a bison skeleton having one horn
curved in this manner. These malformations are
quite common among the Bovidce ; indeed the " cow
with the crumpled horn " has entered into nursery
literature. Pliny mentions "Jubatos bisontes,"
while Seneca and Martial both notice the

76 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

present species, distinguishing it from the urus or
aurochs.

Tibi dant variae pectora Tigres
Tibi villosi terga Bisontes
Latisque feri cornibus Uri.

Senec. Hippol.

In mediaeval literature one finds bison and urus
hopelessly mixed up. The urus (Bos taurus] was a
fine beast inhabiting the Black Forest, and was
probably of a white colour varied with dun and red ;
its horns were situated at the summit of the skull,
and attained a span of 50 inches. It was thus
entirely different from the bonasus ; yet one finds
writer after writer (Gyllius, Erasmus Stella, Claus
Magnus, and Albert the Great) hopelessly confusing
the two animals, and even mistaking elk and reindeer
for bison ! Gesner figured two beasts, one of which
he thought was a bison, the other the urus ; Pallas,
however, showed that both represented the urus.
The matter was cleared up in truly drastic fashion by
the extinction of the wild urus ; some strain of urus
blood probably persists in the half-wild cattle of a
few English parks. The strange perversity which
has misnamed the American bison the " buffalo " and
the Indian gaur the "bison" has applied the term
"aurochs" to the European bison; the latter term
really belongs to the urus — hence the only "aurochs"
alive to day are the white park cattle.

In the old days the bison was abundant, and its

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THE EUROPEAN BISON 77

shaggy troops must have been a fine sight climbing
the rugged hillsides or bathing in the rivers. So
plentiful were they in 1594, that peasants passing
through the Transylvanian forests were sometimes
trampled to death by a rush of startled bonasus.
The old Polish kings and nobles had grand sport
with these magnificent animals, taking the woods
with thousands of beaters ; perhaps the last to enjoy
such royal pastime was Augustus III. of Poland,
who in 1752 killed no less than sixty bison. The
last bison shot in Pomerania was killed by Duke
Wratislaw V. about the middle of the fourteenth
century — doubtless with a crossbow ; one of its
horns, originally used as a drinking cup, was after-
wards deposited as a reliquary in the Cathedral of
Commin. It is said that the last bison taken in
Hungary was killed in the forest of Sohl by an
expert crossbow shooter as early as the reign of
King Mathias (1458-1490) ; but according to Edward
von Crynk this did not occur till 1814, when the
last survivor was slain in the Siebenberg. The last
bison in Prussia was killed by two poachers in 1755.
Unsettled political conditions have rendered it
difficult to satisfactorily protect the Polish bison,
and many were killed in 1863 by insurgents who
took refuge in the forests. In the Caucasus, however,
the wild bonasus yet linger in small troops, sole
remnant of a once widespread race ; they frequent the
northern side of the mountains, and occur in the

78 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

forests near the sources of the Leba and Bjillaga
rivers, their headquarters being in the dense woods
of the Kisha valley. These Caucasian animals are,
however, comparatively rare, and as many as five
are seldom seen together, though it is said that thirty
years ago herds of fifty or sixty head then occurred
in the same regions.1 Seventy bison horns, set in
silver, figured at a feast given by some Caucasian
nobles in honour of General von Rosen ; a single
horn holds barely four litres of liquor.

The Lithuanian herd are almost park animals.
The forest which they inhabit consists of a flat
woodland, timbered with magnificent limes and other
trees, and intersected by a number of grass rides
drawn at right angles to each other. This reserve
was originally made by Augustus III., who enclosed
thirty square miles with a strong wooden fence thirty
metres high. A stand having been erected for the
marksmen, the bison were driven through an opening
in the fence twenty feet away. In one day forty-two
head were killed in this unsportsmanlike fashion ;
the queen slew twenty of them, and filled in the time
by reading a novel till the beaters came up !

At the present day, it is satisfactory to note, the
Lithuanian bison are pretty strictly looked after.
The forest is patrolled by a military guard ; so
severe are the game laws that it has been said that

1. The fire-breathing bulls of the Argonauts were probably Caucasian
bison, red-eyed and savage.

THE EUROPEAN BISON 79

it is cheaper in Russia to kill a man than a bison.
The slaughter of a bison is punished by three years
hard labour and a fine of 800 roubles ; the slaughter
of a man by three years in Siberia and no fine at all !
Any motherless bison, elk, or red deer found in the
forest are brought up on cow's milk until four months
old, when they are fed on bruised oats ; a fine strong
bull and four cows thus reared were sent to Pless in
I893.1 The Lithuanian bison are supposed to have
degenerated by interbreeding; but at any rate a wild
bison killed by Johann Sigismund in 1595 weighed
only 19 cwt., or 100 Ibs. less than the specimen
living in the Berlin Zoological Gardens !

From its fine appearance and status as a genuine
"big game animal, the European bison has always
been a desirable exhibit for zoological gardens and
museums. All the specimens now in captivity are
supplied from the Lithuanian herd ; but on one
occasion — on December 19, 1866 — a Caucasian
example which Adjeff had taken near Ateikar
was with great difficulty conveyed to Moscow.
When Henry IV. of England visited Prussia in
1390-91, a bison and two bears were presented to
him — royal gifts indeed : a bison was also sent to
London as a present to George IV. The first
examples received in the London Zoological Gardens

1, The care taken of the Lithuanian bison — nominally wild animals —
has become almost ludicrous. According to Brehm, the fiery bonasus of
Aristotle now follow people to be fed, like the "wild" bears which
frequent the hotels in Yellowstone Park !

80 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

arrived in 1847. They consisted of a pair of young
animals which, through the influence of Sir R. I.
Murchison, had been presented by the Czar
Nicholas I. to the Zoological Society. Fifty
foresters and three hundred beaters were employed
in driving the forest ; a keeper was sent as far as
Memel to take charge of the animals, which were in
fairly good condition. The Council awarded the
silver medal to Sir R. Murchison and M. Dolmatoff,
the master of the imperial forest of Bialowicsa.
Unfortunately, the male bison died in the following
year from inflammation of the lungs, being two
years and five months old. In September, 1848,
the animal suddenly began to fail, and refused
its food; feverish and exhausted by impeded
respiration, it died about a week later. Sir
Richard Owen, who dissected the carcase, found
that the whole right lung was congested, being
glued to the pericardium by adhesions ; and there
was also bronchitis. In 1849 the female, together
with three American bison, succumbed to pleuro-
pneumonia. In 1860 a pair of bison were sent to
St. Petersburg ; and about this time the Emperor
Franz Josef presented a three year old bull and a two
year old cow to the Dresden collection. The cow
calved in 1860, but treated her offspring badly
and trampled on it, so that it died ; another calf,
however, lived. A specimen was exhibited in
the Berlin Zoological Gardens about 1864; and

.8

5 •

sl

ij

l-s

THE EUROPEAN BISON 8 1

in November, 1868, the Zoological Society of
London purchased one which had been born in the
Amsterdam collection on July I4th, 1866.

Regarding more recent specimens, mention may
be made of the bison seen by the writer at
Amsterdam in 1900 ; at Antwerp in the same year
he also photographed an old bull which, received as
a mere youngster, had attained the age of twenty-
three years in captivity. A few months later a pair
of young bison, acquired through M. Henry
Vanderlinden, President of the Antwerp Zoological
Society, were added to the Gardens. In 1901 a bull
and two cows from the Lithuanian herd were received
on a private estate in England. Dr. Heck's
valuable book of photographs illustrating the
collection at Berlin contains a good picture of a pair
of young bonasus ; the bull looks a very fine sturdy
animal as with mild interest he turns his great head
to regard the camera.

Lastly, on April 15, 1904, the first specimens
seen in America reached the New York Zoological
Park ; although thin, weak, and bruised on arrival,
they steadily improved in condition. They consisted
of a pair of animals about five years old, and had
been purchased from the private herd of the Prince
of Pless in Silesia. This private herd was started
about 1855 by a former Prince, who thus introduced
the bison to its old haunts. The Prince exchanged
some red deer with the Czar for a three-year old

82 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

bull and three cows, and turned the bison into the
great deer forest of Emanuel Segen. In 1885 this
herd consisted of six bulls, two cows and two calves.

The following census of museum specimens of a
fast disappearing species may be valuable : —

i and 2. Adult bull and cow in the Natural History
Museum, South Kensington ; shot by Mr. St. G.
Littledale, and presented by him in 1892. Published
measurements : height of bull, 5 ft. 1 1 in. at the
withers and loft, i in. muzzle to root of tail. Colour
bright chestnut brown, perhaps due to fading.
From the Caucasus.

3. Bull bison from Lithuania, presented by the
Czar to the British Museum in 1845.

4. Cow in the Edinburgh Museum, stuffed, from
the Duke of Bedford's collection.

5. Adult bull in the Leyden Museum, received
from the St. Petersburg Museum.

6 and 7. Skins of two half-grown specimens now
in the Leyden Museum, received from the Rotterdam
Zoological Gardens in October, 1871.

8. Skin of a young individual at Leyden, received
from the Zoological Gardens at Amsterdam, April,
1869.

9. Skull of male bison from Lithuania in the
Royal College of Surgeons' Museum, presented by
Professor Otto in 1838.

10. Bones of the trunk of a young bull in the Royal
College of Surgeons' Museum. This animal was

THE EUROPEAN BISON 83

presented alive to the Zoological Gardens in 1847
by the Czar of Russia.

11. A pair of horns (said to be those of a young
bison cow) are in the same museum.

1 2. Bison presented to the Gottingen Museum by
the Czar.

13. Specimen presented to the Copenhagen
Museum.

14. Mounted group representing a fight between
bison and panther ; set up under the supervision of
Gustav Radde, and now in the Tiflis Museum.

Every naturalist will hope that the European
bison will yet be preserved for many years. The
wild animals of the Caucasus perhaps stand the best
chance ; for although every care may be taken of the
Lithuanian herd there is always the danger that
their numbers may sink so low (by an outbreak of
rinderpest for instance) as to actually snuff out.
Preponderance of male offspring in the herd would
herald disaster ; then in absence of fresh blood the
successive generations would become malformed,
with twisted crumpled horns and weak stamina —
Fuit bonassus : exit the bison.

A curious method of preserving at least some strain
of bison blood has been adopted of late years, working
with the A merican species. The " buffalo" breeds
with domestic cattle ; so freely does it intermix that
many of these hybrid animals can hardly be distin-
guished from pure bison. Although such creatures

84 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

can hardly be satisfactory to the naturalist, being
neither one thing nor the other, yet by this introduction
of fresh blood it would doubtless be possible to
preserve indefinitely a feral race of bovines bearing
at least some outward resemblance to the monarch
of the prairies. The supposed antagonism of the
European bison to domestic cattle has been proved
false by Count Walicki, who crossed his bonasus
with Swiss cows ; while the pair of calves received at
the Zoological Gardens in 1847 took readily to the
foster-mothers provided for them. It might therefore
be possible to establish a race of half-bred or three-
quarter-bred bonasus ; but experiments in this
direction would be far inferior to the plan of strictly
protecting it as a pure-bred, truly wild animal.

Happily, the shooting of bison has been absolutely
prohibited throughout the Russian Empire, so that
even a grand duke has to get permission to kill one
or two ; in addition, the Kisha district of the
Caucasus is now strictly preserved by the Grand
Duke Sergius Mikhailvitch, who has rented 500,000
acres of the bison country, and checkmates poaching
by a staff of good keepers. It is said that in
ten years the Grand Duke's party only killed
one Caucasian bison. The present species was
probably the first animal to receive Government
protection — save, perhaps, the New Forest deer at
the time of the Conquest — hence, possibly, the fact
that it now survives at all.

THE EUROPEAN BISON 85

Tame or wild, Lithuanian or Caucasian, the
bonasus is a splendid creature whose extinction
would be an irreparable loss to Zoology. He is not
stately like the giraffe, useful like the elephant, nor
beautiful like the zebra ; yet his very uncouth
sturdiness and his rugged home, not amid tropical
verdure, but amid hardy pines and rowans, make
him a picturesque and striking figure. Long
may he frequent the icy peaks dim with mist and
white with snowfields ; long may he pasture
beside the mountain rill, swim the turquoise lakes,
and repose under the spreading boughs on a couch
of pine needles — a wild dweller in a wild region !
The bison is not British, but he is very European ;
and all lovers of wild life will wish him well.

THE CAPE BUFFALO.

As the bison represents the great game animals of
Europe, so is the African buffalo pre-eminently
typical of the Dark Continent. Sturdy, powerful,
and courageous, it is remarkably interesting, studied
merely for its own sake ; but various side issues
invest it with an additional importance perhaps
equalled by no other wild beast. Buffalo's blood
harbours the Trypanosoma brucii which, sucked up
into the proboscis of the tse tse fly, kill wholesale
the horses and oxen which it bites ; buffalo sus-
ceptibility to rinderpest has spread this scourge far
and wide in Africa, causing fearful destruction
amongst wild game and domestic cattle. Thus the
study of zoology is no mere relaxation for amateurs,
but in its everyday aspect has a very practical
bearing on the progress of colonisation.

The Cape buffalo (Bos ca/er)—buffel of the Cape
Dutch — nyati of the Zanzibaris — in its typical race
stands about 4 feet 8 inches high at the shoulders,
and measures some 12 feet in extreme length,
allowing 3 feet for the tail. The head is helmeted
with a stout boss formed by the bases of the strong
uncinate horns which, passing outward with a bold
sweep, may attain a length of 3 feet measured over
the curve. The muzzle, large and expanded, is
moist and naked ; the eyes have a hollow below the

THE CAPE BUFFALO 87

inner angle ; the pointed ears are enormous, and
are heavily fringed with long hair. There is no
marked hump on the withers ; the coat is coarse and
scanty ; the tail bears a swinging tassel, which
reaches below the hock. Young calves of this Cape
race are reddish brown, becoming dun when older ;
at about three years they begin to turn black. With
increasing age the hair falls out till at last the animal
is almost as bare as a rhinoceros ; aged buffalo are
haired on limbs and head only — even the ear-fringes
and tail tassel may be lost.

Now the Congo buffalo (Bos nanus of some
writers) — bush cow of the colonists — bona of the
Hausas — differs strikingly from the above. It is
much smaller than the Cape race, standing a full
foot lower at the withers, and in its light, almost
antelopine build recalls an Alderney cow ; the horns
are much smaller and less curved, and bear no special
frontal boss. The calves are light red, the adults
rufous red, and aged animals dirty brown ; with
increasing age much of the hair on the shoulders and
quarters is lost. The ears and tail are haired as in
the Cape race. Comparison of museum specimens
will show how widely different are these extreme
types of buffalo ; for many years indeed they were
supposed to be perfectly distinct.

A more extended study of the African Bovidce
has, however, shown that there exist a number of
transitional forms linking up in perfect sequence the

88 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

heavily-armed, muscular beast of the Cape with the
small bush cow of the Congo. The dark brown
Abyssinian buffalo, with smallish horns and a semi-
boss on the forehead, is nearest to the Cape race ;
next comes the Senegambian form, with the horns
markedly shortened, thickened, and blunt ; the rare
buffalo from Lake Tchad, discovered by Denham
and Clapperton in the first half of the last century,
fits in somewhere here. Doubtless other connecting
links will be eventually discovered, demonstrating
the essential unity of all African forms. For the
purpose of this work the "Cape" buffalo is considered
as single species, though somewhat modified in
various parts of Africa.

The present species inhabits Africa from the Cape
to Abyssinia ; in many places, however, it has been
seriously thinned, or even exterminated, by man.
Like zebra and rhinoceros, it must drink every day ;
hence it is never found far from water, and its haunts
accord with this necessity. Wide rivers slowly
flowing under the shade of graceful willows ; papyrus
marshes reeking with miasma and beclouded with
mosquitoes ; streams winding through rocky gorges
and kloofs — these are the haunts of the buffalo.
Feeding towards dawn, about daylight the dusky
herd goes down to drink, resuming grazing till the
hot sun drives them to their lair. In the heat of the
day the well-nigh impenetrable tangle of wait-a-bit
thorn and roibosch affords a secure and ready-made

THE CAPE BUFFALO 89

summer house ; while in the wet season the long
grass on the plains (attaining a height of six or eight
feet) conceals the herd as effectually as in England
the June herbage shelters the hare. Buffalo wallow
frequently and bathe much, lying motionless hour
after hour with the head alone above the surface,
more like lumps of clay than living creatures. These
animals go in herds of from fifty to two or even three
hundred individuals. The young are born from
January to April, and only one calf is produced at a
birth ; they are easily tamed, but very difficult to
rear, since they are liable to take cold and also care
little for cows' milk. The domestication of the
African buffalo on lines similar to that of the long-
horned buffalo of India has, however, been suggested.
Early dawn in the yellowwood thickets. A
herd of buffalo slowly pasture through the more
open glades, their huge helmeted heads closely
applied to the greensward, and their long tails
swishing about their sable flanks. Along the
backs of these wild cattle run the rhinoceros birds,
smart and starling-like, pausing every now and
then to prise a tick out of the hide. Save for an
occasional grunt, not a sound is uttered by the
dusky herd ; all is silent and peaceful in the fast-
growing sunshine. Others besides buffaloes are
abroad in the forest. A honey-guide wings its
undulating flight into the scrub ; a flock of mouse-
birds fly like arrows into the trees, jerking up their

9O NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

tails in characteristic fashion as they alight. A tiny
antelope darts across the clearing to dive headlong
into the bush ; a troop of pallah, red-coated and
gazelle-eyed, streak through the neighbouring
thicket, often leaping high in the air, as if made of
indiarubber. Feeding slowly along, the buffaloes
begin to pass some of the larger forest trees ;
hundreds of the trunks show a smear where some
mud-covered elephant has rubbed against them.
Here an uprooted mimosa lies bent and broken on
the red soil ; there in a tangled mass lie half-chewed
stalks of the sanseviera hemp. And now the actual
herd of elephants is seen, and the wood seems alive
with dark swaying tarpaulin-covered wagons — the
bodies of the elephants. Passing among the weather-
beaten trees, these same trees seem to take life and
motion as out into the sunshine, with peacock necks
swinging up and down, glides a troop of beautiful
giraffe. As the buffaloes progress, through the
thinning forest are seen glimpses of a wide plain, its
vast expanse dotted with acacia trees and black with
game. Far out on the veldt an immense troop of
zebras, their striped coats toned down to a dull grey
by the distance, pasture in a huge crescent ; hundreds
of wildebeest blacken the plains, the old bulls
standing solitary on sentry duty ; dim in the distance a
troop of hartebeest show as a dull red blur among the
anthills. To the naturalist, this zoological gardens
let loose is of the greatest interest ; but the buffaloes

THE CAPE BUFFALO 9!

are chiefly concerned in the patch of young grass at
the edge of the thicket, growing over the remnants
of a bush fire.

Later. The sun-drenched veldt is fast obscuring
with heat haze — so fast, indeed, that the zebras and
antelopes seem to be walking in water ; the ruddy
coats of the hartebeests have blanched to white in
the solar rays. Full-fed and drowsy, the buffalo
make for the river, whose papyrus brakes will afford
a welcome retreat. Filing through the bush, they
come upon the water, a sheet of ultramarine matched
only by the peerless cobalt of the sky. Acres of
flowering rushes wave their flossy plumes in the
breeze : hundreds of rough-coated waterbuck, brilliant
against the lush green vegetation, stand at gaze
among the sedges like a troop of red deer in a High-
land glen. Here a startled reedbuck dashes away, its
white brush jerked upwards like the tail of a rabbit ;
there a couple of wart-hogs, tusked and grizzled,
scamper fussily out of a mud wallow. Close to the
water's edge a party of hippopotami lie basking in a
self-made sand bath ; as the buffaloes plunge into
the tepid river a cloud of frogs rise hopping from
beneath their very feet.

Sunset. Immense flocks of tiny birds (wax-bills)
wing their undulating flight to shelter in the reed
beds. A flock of crested cranes settle in the acacia
trees ; night herons croak discordantly in the papyrus
jungle. The waters of the marsh swirl in hideous

92 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

commotion ; thrust above the surface are seen the
snouts of numerous crocodiles rousing up for
the evening's carnival. The bellowing of the
hippopotami shakes the earth as numbers of huge
heads appear floating down stream, like the masks of
monstrous frogs; then black, glistening and dripping,
the hippos leave the water, passing along well-worn
tracks to feed. There is a shaking of the papyrus
as the buffalo leave their reedy covert, looming
larger than life in the fast-thickening darkness. A
whinnying from a herd of pallah stationed somewhere
out on the veldt ; a neighing of zebras approaching
the water under the guidance of an old stallion ; last
of all, in the sudden darkness, a ferocious sobbing
roar that cannot be mistaken — the king of the
forests is afoot — it is the voice of Africa !

The Cape buffalo was first mentioned in 1705 by
Kolben, who noted its abundance near Capetown.
Sparrman described and figured a specimen which
he obtained on December 13, 1775, near Bushman's
River; in 1777, Paterson observed it in Caledon ;
later, Sir Cornwallis Harris first met with it near
Mosega (1836), and Gordon Gumming (1844)
records it from the Bakatla district of Bechuanaland.
In recent years the African buffaloes have been
sadly thinned out by gunners and decimated by the
rinderpest.

Arising about 1883-84 in the Dinka and Galla
cattle countries on the Upper Nile, the rinderpest

THE CAPE BUFFALO 93

swept Eastern Africa in a ghastly tornado of desola-
tion, spreading everywhere, through wild game and
tame cattle, through buffalo and eland, through
giraffe and wart-hog, through Nuer heifer and Galla
ox.1 By 1 890 the scourge had appeared in British
East Africa and in the adjoining German territory.
So severely did the wild buffaloes suffer that it is
said that in one day an English official saw about a
hundred sick animals in various stages of the disease.
The great herds which had enlivened the Kawenda
district with their lowing were all but wiped out, and
in many parts of the Uganda Protectorate the buffalo
became entirely extinct. Eland and wart-hog also
suffered severely ; elephants and hippopotami,
rhinoceroses and wildebeest remained unharmed.
In 1892 the plague had reached the north of Nyassa,
causing a mortality of over ninety per cent ; in 1895
it entered Matebel eland. At last, in Cape Colony,
the rinderpest came into contact with the forces of
civilisation, and the services of a distinguished
scientist were called in to endeavour to stay the
scourge.

A remarkable consequence of this visitation was
the ruin of the once dreaded Masai, a warlike race
of nomads inhabiting East Africa. Their sole
wealth consisted in their great herds. Despising

1. Post mortem examination of a banteng (Javan wild ox) calf which
died of rinderpest at Calcutta revealed extensive congestion of the
larynx and windpipe, which were full of frothy mucus ; there was
ulceration in the large intestine but not in the small ; the liver and spleen
were healthy.

94 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

agriculture, they tyrannised over weaker tribes,
plundering and killing their Bantu and Nandi
neighbours, and harrying the country even to within
sight of the sea. The rinderpest slew thousands of
their cattle, and, like the Esquimaux deprived of
their walrus, the Masai sickened and died in
thousands through sheer starvation. Round the
native camps of 1890 were found many human
skulls mingled with the cattle bones ; charms and
incantations had alike proved useless, and the
warrior shepherds had shared the fate of their
flocks. Thus has the African buffalo indirectly
contributed to the pacification of Africa ; dying of
rinderpest, it communicated the disease to the flocks
and herds of the Masai ; and this once formidable
tribe became a mere starved remnant on the face
of the earth.

Attention has already been drawn to the serious
crippling of the colonisation of Africa by the tse tse
fly, which by biting, or rather stabbing, the trek
oxen hampers the movements of travellers. It has
now been shown that the progressive emaciation
and anaemia seen in "stung" cattle is in some way
connected with the presence in the blood of minute
parasites called trypanosomes, introduced through
the proboscis of the tse tse at the time of attack.
These parasites occur naturally in the blood of many
wild animals — buffalo, wildebeeste, kudu ; the tse
tse feeding on them, flies off infected with

THE CAPE BUFFALO 95

trypanosomes, which having been sucked in through
the hollow proboscis, develop freely in the stomach
of the fly. The trypanosomes increase rapidly,
multiplying by longitudinal division ; they assume two
forms, having either thick bodies and protoplasm
taking a blue stain with laboratory reagents, or else
very slender bodies and protoplasm that cannot be so
stained. The fly next communicates the disease to
any tame cattle on which it happens to feed ; these,
however, cannot tolerate the presence of the
trypanosomes, and eventually die exhausted. It
has often been noticed that where the wild
buffaloes have been exterminated the tse tse has
vanished also : these oxen act as a reservoir
whence the tse tse (itself harmless) draws its
supply of trypansomes. Together with several
other wild animals, the buffalo, though acting as host
for the parasite, is itself immune from the disease.
Thus the presence of big game by favouring trypano-
somiasis (or " nagana ") may hinder colonisation by
means of cattle ; another instance of the indirect
influence of the African buffalo.1

Finally, the buffalo is an agent in disseminating
diseases borne by ticks. These ticks are eight-
legged spider-like creatures which infest the long

1. Happily the presence of big game in a district does not necessarily
imply the presence of the tse tse; thus it is now absent from the Transvaal
(having disappeared with the rinderpest) though a considerable amount
of game still exists in the Reserves. The crazy measure to check nagana
recently advocated — the extermination of big game — will receive little
support from practical men.

96 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

grass, and stand ready to seize upon any animal
brushing its way through. Attaching themselves
firmly to the hide of their host, they suck its blood;
if the ticks contain any parasites derived from a
previous meal on a buffalo they will probably transfer
it to their new host. Millions of ticks cover the
grass and bushes near the haunts and feeding places
of the wild buffalo ; three distinct species of Rhipi-
cephalus (R. sangmneus, R. appendiculatus, and
R. pulchellus) have been found in the swamps of the
Pangani River. In this connection it is interesting
to note that another tick (R. australis) develops
Texas fever in man by harbouring within it the
curious Piroplasma bigeminum. The piroplasma at
at first exists as a pyriform parasite in a red blood-
corpuscle of its first host (cattle) ; on being drawn
into the stomach of the female tick it acts in some
way (perhaps by breaking up and passing though
the walls of the stomach) so that her offspring are
infected with trypanosomes and are able to spread
the disease by their bites. One thus sees the
importance of protecting those feathered police, the
rhinoceros birds, which by ridding the wild game of
ticks hinder the spread of blood diseases.

The red Congo buffalo or bush cow appears to
have first been known from a specimen described by
Belon, as early as 1555, as the "Petit Bceuf
d'Afrique ;" a pair of horns — probably the same as
described by Belon — were preserved in the Royal

CONGO BUFFALO, OR BUSH COW.

Note the light build of the animal and the small though handsome horns, tending
to converge at the tips. Original in the Natural History Museum, South Kensington,

THE CAPE BUFFALO 97

Society's collection and described by Grew in 1686 ;
these are now in the British Museum. The bush
cow is still comparatively little known ; the late Dr.
Gray, however, records that Mr. Cross, of the Surrey
Zoological Gardens, received a living female from
Sierra Leone in 1839. In 1872 a pair of this
race — immature animals, but growing fast — were
exhibited in the collection at Berlin. The present
writer in 1900 inspected and photographed a pair
of " buffle nain du Sengal," then living in the
Antwerp Zoological Gardens.1 These animals were
both of a blackish brown colour, and apparently
belonged to one of the races intermediate between
the bush cow and the Cape form ; the horns sloped
backwards almost in the plane of the forehead,
being more curved in the female than the male.
The bull was savage enough, rushing up to the
railings and fiercely butting them with his armed
head ; the cow was quite tame. They were kept
in separate pens ; the keeper said they would fight
if placed together.

In May, 1906, the writer also photographed a
dwarf buffalo (Bos centralis) — one of the inter-
mediate forms — deposited in the London Zoological
Gardens on November 21, 1904. It was a
good healthy specimen, well covered all over
with dark blackish brown hair tinged with

1. Renshaw: "Short-horned Buffaloes in the Antwerp Zoological
Gardens."— Proc.Zool. Soc., 1904.

98 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

chocolate. The lead-coloured muzzle had a few
hairs scattered about it ; the tongue was dull
purplish, and the floor of the mouth pink ; the nasal
region, seen in profile, was slightly arched. The
iris was chocolate brown, and the eye-lashes long,
fine, and delicate ; the hair between the bases of the
horns was greyish white. The ears bore only a few
stray wisps of long hair, and were lead-coloured ;
from occiput to withers there were nine more or less
prominent transverse folds of skin ; an indistinct
mane passed from occiput to withers, where it
disappeared. The " knees " of the fore legs were
provided with long curly wisps of yellowish-white
hair ; the tail was nearly bare in the upper half, but
the rest was furnished wiih a fairly ample blackish-
brown tassel, which hung below the hocks. The
under parts of this buffalo were pale yellowish.

In conclusion it is satisfactory to note that the
African animals so sorely stricken by the rinderpest
have shown notable increase of late years, especially
buffalo, eland, oryx antelope, roan antelope, and
giraffe. Already a herd of five hundred buffalo has
been observed in British East Africa ; in Southern
Ankole and Buddu three or four herds of a very
large variety of this animal are reported as rapidly
increasing in numbers. Similarly, the Cape race
has increased materially in the Transvaal Game
Reserves, having enjoyed two and a half years of
virtually absolute protection from gunners ; and

THE CAPE BUFFALO 99

other accounts equally interesting now appear from
time to time in publications devoted to natural
history. The Society for the Preservation of the
Fauna of the Empire includes the buffalo in the
scope of its operations ; and one may well desire all
such efforts to succeed and prosper.

THE MUSK OX.

"The king went this evening to lie at Lord Arundel's in
Highgate that he may be nearer and readier to hunt the stag
on the morrow in St. John's Wood."

Sir Dudley Carleton on James I.

Few chronicles are more interesting than the
history of our own country ; these records of
bygone times reveal a state of things strange
indeed to the reader of to-day. Charing Cross,
a monument erected by royal Edward in memory
of his queen ; later, the name of a village
outside London, situated near the hamlets of
Kensington and Westminster ; Temple Gardens,
where Plantagenet plucked the white rose and
Somerset the red ; Hyde Park, the former
hunting ground of Edward VI.; Tottenham, in
whose brooks Izaak Walton used to angle, once had
associations different indeed from those now attached
to them. It seems strange to read that as late as
1 034 Regent's Park abounded with hares, which
used to eat the plants and flowers in the Zoological
Gardens ; while about this date, Lord Malmesbury
recorded that he shot pheasants in the same park.
Could one, however, have beheld Britain in the
Glacial Epoch, strange indeed would the country
have appeared, overrun with giant beasts and
savage men.

THE MUSK OX IOI

The British mammalia in these prosaic days have
fallen on hard times. Cave lion and cave bear,
rhinoceros and mammoth, giant Irish deer and white
urus all gone ; even the English beaver is extinct. The
marten and wild cat are rare almost to vanishing
point. Stoat and weasel, fox and badger stand
to-day for the glorious game animals of the past,
while such small deer as bats and shrews usurp the
place once occupied by mastodon and sabre-toothed
tiger. However, there yet remain elsewhere
representatives of the great fauna that once
inhabited these islands ; thus the African lion is
indistinguishable from that found in cave deposits,
and the musk ox, once British, still lingers in
Greenland and Arctic America east of the Mackenzie
River.

The musk ox (Ovibos moschatus] — umimak of the
Esquimaux and Greenlanders — stands about four
feet high at the withers, and measures over five and
a half feet from the tip of the nose to the root of the
tail, being about the size of a Kerry cow. The
muzzle is broad and hairy ; the horns, springing
from greatly expanded and flattened bases, curve
outwards, downwards, and finally upwards like those
of the black wildebeest. The neck is short ; the
heavily-built body is covered all over with long
shaggy hair and warmly undervested with wool ; the
rudimentary tail is quite hidden under so ample an
overcoat. The feet are broad ; in each the outer

IO2 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

hoof is round and the inner one pointed. The horns
of the musk ox average twenty-five inches in length,
with a maximum record of thirty-six inches ; those
of bulls almost meet in the middle line by their bases,
but those of cows are much smaller and never
develop the frontal helmet. The horns of calves are
at first thimble-like projections, afterwards growing
out as long straight spikes before the curved basal
portion of the horn is developed.

The musk ox may be divided according to its
coloration into two well-marked local races. Thus
the Canadian form is of a general grizzled umber
brown hue ; there is a saddle of light yellow on the
middle of the back, and the under wool is light
brown. Old bulls become nearly black on the head,
neck, and sides ; there is often if not always some
white on the legs, irrespective of sex. In Eastern
Greenland, however, the musk oxen are of a rufous
brown colour on the shoulders, have a light brown
or whitish saddle on the back, and are dark brown
on the rest of the body ; there is a large white or
whitish patch on the face between the base of the
horns and the muzzle, the rest of the face being
greyish. The nose is white ; the ears and an
ill-defined patch below them are grey, while the feet
are white or greyish, gradually merging above into
the darker body hue. So remarkably does the
Greenland musk ox differ from the Canadian
animal that some have proposed to rank it as

THE MUSK OX IO3

a distinct species under the name of Ovibos
zvardi.

The true zoological position of the musk ox is a
matter of debate. Singularly isolated from the rest
of the animal kingdom, its name Ovibos indicates an
ox having affinities with the sheep ; it is not,
however, a connecting link between the two. The
muzzle has a bare strip above the nostrils, as in
sheep, but the lip is not cleft as in them, neither are
there any foot-glands ; recent investigations seem to
indicate that the animal cannot be referred to either
group, and that it should form a sub-family of its
own. The nearest ally to the musk ox is the
curious takin (Budorcas taxicolor) of Thibet, a fierce
and little-known animal which has never yet been
shot by a European sportsman. The takin stands
about three and a half feet at the shoulder, and has
thick black horns ; it resembles a musk ox in the
making. A specimen of the typical form, now in
the Natural History Museum at South Kensington,
has the face black and the limbs deep chocolate ;
there is a good deal of pale yellow about the nape of
the neck, withers and back ; the rest of the fur is
blackish brown, and a black line runs along the
back. A photograph of a takin calf appeared in the
Field for October 13, 1906 ; probably the first living
specimen seen by Europeans, it was supposed to be
less than twelve months old when the picture was
taken. The animal had been obtained in the Sikkim

IO4 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

district by some natives, who brought it to the
Commissioner ; unfortunately, it presently died —
poisoned, it was supposed, by eating aconite plants.
Inhabiting the icy wildernesses of the North, the
musk ox wanders in herds of eighty or a hundred
individuals, feeding like reindeer on mosses and
lichens, and climbing the rocky hills with remarkable
ease.1 In spring, the animals are in poor condition;
during the summer, however, they frequent the
valleys, and browse on the leaves of stunted willows,
so that by winter they are fat and lusty. In summer
the loose undercoat is shed in patches, and may be
seen hanging in untidy wisps on twigs and bushes.
Fearing no enemy save the Arctic wolf, the musk
ox is amongst the most unwary of big game animals;
the regions it inhabits beingpermanently occupied only
by Esquimaux, whose primitive weapons make little
impression on the shaggy herds. Indian and white
hunters are limited by the tree-line ; fuel must be
cut beforehand and laden on sledges, the hunters
depending on caribou deer for meat until they can
reach the musk oxen. Hence in this region of
intense cold the present species enjoys a considerable
amount of natural protection ; as for the weather it
defies it, warmly clad in its great overcoat as it
wanders over the dreary landscape. One readily

1. So great is the activity of these clumsy-looking beasts that Sir
John Richardson notes that one individual readily scaled a steep sand-
cliff on the Coppermine River, up which the party were obliged to crawl
on hands and Knees !

THE MUSK OX 105

pictures a troop of musk oxen adding life and
character to the misty expanse of white, their dusky
forms dotted over the snowfield as they crop the
lichen wherever the snow has drifted from the icy
ridges.

Picture then a troop of musk oxen, drawn up on
the top of a bluff, like Highland cattle in a picture
by Landseer. The curving horns and shaggy coats
of the animals give them a rugged picturesqueness
well matched by the savage desolation of the Arctic ;
their breath rises like steam in the crystal-clear
atmosphere. In the foreground a white hare crops
the scanty herbage ; in the rocky gorge far below a
snowy owl floats on noiseless pinions through a
world of mist and ice. Weird, desolate, yet
fascinating, such a subject rendered by a master-
hand would appeal to every naturalist ; gazing upon
it one would almost expect to see a lemming pop
out of its burrow, or to hear the bark of an
Arctic fox.

On December 4, 1900, the skins and skulls of a
pair of Greenland musk ox (the first specimens
known to science) were received in England. The
skins were mounted, and the female, exhibited
at a meeting of the Zoological Society, was afterwards
presented to the National Collection by Mr.
Rowland Ward. In March, 1901, Dr. J. A. Allen
published a valuable memoir on " The Musk Oxen
of Arctic America and Greenland," in Vol XIV. of

106 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural
History.1

The first living musk oxen in England since
the Glacial Epoch consisted of two calves
which had been taken by a Swedish expedition
on Clavering Island, off Eastern Greenland,
on August 1 6, 1899. About the size of retriever
dogs on their arrival in England, they were purchased
by the Duke of Bedford, and although one soon
died, the other lived for several years at Woburn.
These animals both had the white forehead and face
characteristic of the Greenland race ; the survivor
showed at two years old very considerable develop-
ment of the horns and of the light-coloured patch on
the back. It was figured in Knowledge for June i,
1900 ; the horns were just appearing above the long
hair of the head, while the comparatively short hair
on the flanks allowed the stoutly built pasterns to
be seen to great advantage.

In 1900, some Norwegians achieved remarkable
success with the musk ox, no less than fourteen
calves being brought over to Europe. Of these, a
yearling male was sold in Hamburg for ^65, he
having lost a horn on his travels ; five were bought
for the collection at Antwerp at ^"50 each, three
unfortunately dying before reaching their destination;

1. The musk ox was the Bos moschatus of Zimmerman (Geograp.
Geschichte, 1780). For many years it was so little known that as late as
1850 the well-preserved bull in the British collection was the only
specimen in any European or American museum ! The anatomy of the
soft parts was studied for the first time in 1900.

THE MUSK OX

another of the calves went to the Zoological Garden
at Berlin. About the end of September, 1900,
Lieut. Amdrup's expedition returned home ; they
brought with them a calf, the survivor of two
obtained by the drastic method of shooting down a
whole herd on two separate occasions ! Two musk
calves imported into Sweden some years ago were
described as being quite tame, with splendid coats
and very suitable to acclimatise in that country.

On March 12, 1902, the New York Zoological
Society received a female musk ox which had been
obtained by a party of whalers and Esquimaux in
the previous year. A herd containing four calves
had been found and the calves all taken ; unfortunately
the sled dogs killed three of them, but the survivor
was preserved, and fed on a diet of coarse grass and
willow twigs till hay could be obtained for her. The
calf was bought for the New York Zoological Park
for $1,600, and installed in a comfortable enclosure
provided with suitable shade. Twenty-two months
old at the time of arrival, her horns were six inches
apart at the base and measured ten inches along the
curve ; she stood three feet ten inches at the shoulder,
and the combined length of head and body was four
feet ten inches. The animal was fed on clover hay,
crushed oats, etc., and also browsed on the bushes
growing in the enclosure. Another — a very small
specimen — was added to the collection in the same
year, but neither lived twelve months. In July,

IO8 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

1903, five young musk ox were landed at Tromsoe,
Norway.

The acclimatization of the musk ox in Sweden,
if not in the north of Scotland, has been suggested.
Such an experiment would be extremely interesting ;
for it would restore to its original habitat a
beast which has been extinct in Europe since
the Glacial Epoch. From a sentimental point of
view it would be thrilling to as it were set
back the clock for centuries, repeopling Northern
Europe with a vanished race ; truly would the
Highlands be ornamented with these rugged
colonists, besides which red deer and roebuck would
seem tame indeed I1 From an economic point of
view also something might be done, since stockings
made in France many years ago from musk ox wool
were said to be equal to those of silk. Musk ox
wool is remarkably strong and fine ; a single musk
ox yields as much as twenty sheep.

Let us picture the musk ox as it lived in
Britain in the Pleistocene Epoch. Scene, a great
valley sheeted in white and damp with mist. Here
and there masses of rock, glittering with icicles and
obscured by a scrubby tangle of snow-laden bushes,
dot the landscape at irregular intervals. Dim in the
distance pine woods climb the rugged mountain
sides to the very skyline. An immense herd of

1. In December, 1903, one male and two female musk oxen were living
practically at liberty in Norrland, Sweden, on pasture closely resembling
that of Greenland.

THE MUSK OX

saiga antelope, with proboscis muzzles and grey
coats, crop the stunted herbage ; here and there the
huge form of a woolly rhinoceros looms ashy grey
in the fading twilight. With lurching gait a cave
bear swings out of the tangled thicket ; far off in the
forest a dim red herd of mammoth — primeval
elephants — are huddled for the night under a canopy
of pine boughs. In the middle distance a troop of
musk oxen, sturdy and well-clad, rise slowly from
the sheltered hollow where they have lain all day.

The last rays of the red winter sun fade from the
primeval scene ; the darkness is, however, dispelled
by the rising moon, silvering the boughs of the pine
forest, and casting inky shadows. The saiga
antelopes appear as a huge dim blur, grunting and
grazing. A troop of grey phantoms — wolves on the
prowl — flit across the valley. A shrill alarm whistle
rises from the herd of saiga ; instantly all the grey-
coated antelopes are standing at gaze, peering,
snorting, and stamping in perplexity, with necks
craned out, the youngsters as alert as their elders •
then off dashes the whole herd in a whirlwind of
powdery snow. Most of the wolves pursue the
antelopes ; a few, however, remain to menace the
musk ox, which form up in line of defence, with
the master bull on the extreme right, crowding up
their well-armed ranks like recruits on parade. The
howling attackers completely surround the troop
with a cordon of savage eyes and sharp teeth ; the

TIO NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

musk oxen wheel into a circle, presenting at every
point nothing but a broad rampart of horned heads.
A too venturesome wolf is suddenly caught on the
horns of the leader — is whirled up into the air, and
lies gasping on the earth with a broken spine. This
attack, however, is too much for the nerves of the
musk oxen ; panic seizes the herd, and they file off
in flight, the oldest bulls covering the retreat.
Drawn upon the top of a ridge, the musk oxen stand
for one moment to look back on the excited
pursuers ; then all disappear together down the
opposite side.

Silence. Then a movement in the pine forest.
The clamour of the wolves has disturbed the
mammoth. Bunched up under a huge pine
tree, this cluster suddenly dissolves with a hurried
scrambling movement, like the outpouring of
ants from a disturbed nest. Noiselessly they seek
safer quarters, coming out into the moonlight — huge
elephants, powerful, majestic, impressive, and clothed
in a thick shaggy garment of hair and wool. With
the moonlight glancing silvery on their enormous
tusks, and their breath rising frosty in the biting
air they pass up silently along the wooded heights.

THE BARBARY SHEEP.

The gate of Africa ! What a world of romance is
comprised in those words ! The Dark Continent,
at once an El Dorado and a deathtrap, the grave of
many a reputation, the cradle of many a millionaire,
yet exerts a wonderful fascination for the adventurous
traveller, and still prompts those who have once set
foot on her soil to return thither. Rugged peaks
uplifted to a sky of indigo ; mountain torrents
roaring over masses of water-worn boulders ; still
lakes, where the ambatch bean grows, and the
papyrus reed rears its graceful plume of green and
gold ; glaring deserts carpeted with flints, desolate
and waterless — these are amongst her attractions.1
The extreme north of the continent — Algeria for
instance — exhibits so striking a resemblance to
Europe that one can hardly realise that the
Mediterranean stretches between ; but the traveller
will find at El Kantara a rent in the limestone
mountains through which he may view the palm
trees of the desert. El Kantara, in short, may be
regarded as the gate of Africa ; it marks the northern-
most limit of the date palm, was formerly the home
of the lion and leopard, and still harbours to-day

1. The fascination of the African wilderness must be experienced to be
understood ; to the writer, the utter absolute silence of the desert consti-
tutes its chief charm.

I I 2 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

considerable numbers of that curious and exclusively
African animal — the Barbary sheep.

The Barbary sheep or aoudad (Ovis leruid) — aroui
of the Arabs — mouflon a manchettes of the French
colonists — stands about three feet six inches at the
shoulder, old males attaining the bulk of a small ox.
The horns are curved backwards and slightly
downwards, while the tips are directed inwards, thus
allowing the animal to pass easily through the scrub ;
a few faint annulations are seen along the outside.
The face is long and rather expressionless ; the
shoulders are somewhat elevated ; the tail bears a
terminal tassel. The males are bearded like goats,
but more so, a long mat of hair hanging under the
throat and along the chest ; the knees are besleeved
with a generous frill.1

The colour of the aoudad — males, females and
young alike — is a uniform reddish gray tinged with
yellow, like that of the rocks amongst which they
wander. The horns attain an average length of
25 inches over the curve ; the young have them
quite wrinkled, these corrugations disappearing
with age.

The zoological position of the Barbary sheep is
highly interesting, for like the musk ox it stands in
"splendid isolation" from all other forms. The
only African member of the genus Ovis, its curious

1. Bare patches of hard skin occur on the knees, recalling similar
callosities in the giraffe.

BARBARY SHEEP.

August 30, 1907.

Young male. Note the inward curvature of the horns, allowing the
animal to pass readily through the scrub. The throat mane is ample, and the
fore legs are decorated with bunches of hair.

THE BARBARY SHEEP 113

horns, maned forequarters, and uniform coloration
render it striking and singular ; the horns are much
smoother than in most wild sheep — compare them
for instance with the huge ribbed weapons of the
Ovis Poll — they also entirely lack the forward
curvature of the tips seen in that species. Per-
haps the bharal, or blue sheep of Thibet, comes
nearest to the aoudad in the structure of its horns and
skull ; but the blue sheep, though brownish grey
above, has the rump and underparts distinctly white,
and has no elongated hair on the throat and chest.

Amongst the goats, however, several species
occur bearing superficial likeness, both in horns and
pelage, to the aoudad. Thus the thar of the
Himalayas has the horns compressed in front,
angulated, and triangular in section ; flattened
laterally, they bear considerable resemblance, on a
small scale, to the weapons of the Barbary sheep.
Again, they are almost as large in females as in
males ; another point of similarity. In old thar
the shaggy coat becomes elongated on neck, chest^
and shoulders to form a half-mane ; the coat is also
almost uniformly coloured, of a dark or reddish
brown. One must not, however, press the analogy
too closely ; for although Barbary sheep and thar
may well have been descended from a common
ancestor, at the present day structural differences
sufficiently indicate the gap that has intervened.
Thus the thar has no gland between the hoofs of

114 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

the fore feet ; it has the muzzle naked, and no beard,
though it agrees with the aoudad in lacking the gland
below the eye, which is found in all typical sheep.

The aoudad inhabits the lofty mountains of the
Atlas, Aures, and other ranges, being distributed
throughout Tripoli, Tunis, Algeria, and Morocco.
Never found far from the desert, its haunts (as the
writer can testify) are rugged and desolate in the
extreme. Bare cliffs, brilliantly coloured in red and
yellow, and scantily bedecked with dwarf bushes,
constitute the home of the Barbary sheep ; its best
known haunt is the district of El Kantara, on
the very edge of the great African desert. Here
yawning precipices and waterless ravines intersect
the limestone cliffs, giving shade and asylum to the
game ; ragged clumps of thuja scrub and patches of
alfa grass constitute almost the only vegetation.
The rufous coat of the sheep well matches the red
and yellow tints of the rocks, so that it is very
difficult to make them out ; one recalls similar
instances of desert animals coloured to match
their surroundings, jerboas and gerbilles amongst
mammals, and coursers amongst birds, being cases
in point.

The Barbary sheep appears to have been first
mentioned by Herodotus, the Romans having
established on the site of El Kantara their southern
outpost of Calceus Herculis.1 Herodotus also

1. The " asses with horns" in Libya were probably aoudad.

THE BARBARY SHEEP 115

mentions the mountain of salt, supposed to be that
situated near the oasis of El Outaia, another locality
for the aoudad. This mountain is noticeable a long
way off by reason of its white saline surface, con-
trasting markedly with the red and yellow rocks
around it ; owing to its solubility, great chasms and
trenches have been washed out by the action of
successive storms, and dangerous craters have
developed — some of them a hundred feet deep — in the
friable crust. Aoudad and antelope occur here in
some numbers; a little outlying farm has been named
by the French Fontaine des Gazelles.

Although inhabiting so sterile a country — the
Arabs say the aoudad only drink once in five
days — the present species thrives remarkably well
in the cold, damp climate of Europe. It has
bred in the menagerie of the Jardin des Plantes,
whence specimens have been distributed to many
other collections, where they have again bred
freely. It is always represented in every big
vivarium (such as our own Gardens in Regent's
Park) ; quite a number of animals of different sizes
and ages can be seen in the London collection,
affording a most interesting object lesson in the growth
and appearance of the horns at various ages, the
appearance of the throat-mane, etc. Provided with
artificial rock-work, whose rough exterior forms a
ready gymnasium, and whose hollow interior forms a
snug dormitory, the Barbary sheep thrives under

Il6 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

these artificial conditions ; special mention may be
made of the fine show of aoudad at the Diisseldorf
Zoological Garden, where an enormous troop of
some sixty animals scramble in picturesque confusion
about an artificial ruined castle. The New York
Zoological Park also contains a fine " mountain
sheep hill," consisting of a ridge of pink granite ; it
is 500 feet long and 25 feet high. Shaded by trees
at one end, the other is fully exposed ; it is partly
covered with green turf, has five roomy caves
constructed in it, and is subdivided by light fencing
into six enclosures for aoudad and similar animals.
The new Zoological Park at Stellingen, near
Hamburg, also has a good series of artificial
mountains amongst its other attractions. The rocks
rise from 80 to 150 feet, and with their living
tenants present a fine appearance, though the animals
do not ascend to the summit of the peaks. In the
Barbary sheep one has a zoological paradox ; a beast
difficult enough to find (or to capture when found)
in its native mountains, and inhabiting the
burning climate of Africa, not only tolerates the
change of air and scene but breeds with such success
in Europe as to become a familiar menagerie exhibit.

THE NILGAI ANTELOPE.

"Amongst the riches which of late years have been imported
from India may be reckoned a fine animal, the Nylghau ;
which it is to be be hoped will now be propagated in this
country so as to become one of the most useful or at least
one of the most ornamental beasts of the field."

Wm. Hunter on the Nilgai. Phil. Trans., vol. 61.

Prominent amongst the many fine buildings of
London stands the noble museum of the Royal
College of Surgeons, in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Built
to house the great anatomical and pathological
collections made by John Hunter, it stands as a
perpetual monument of the labours of that dis-
tinguished surgeon. The professional visitor will find
rows on rows of preparations, ranged with greatest
taste and judgment in perfect order ; to the layman
the skeletons of long-extinct monsters and other
purely zoological exhibits will doubtless prove of
greater interest. Here may be seen the huge
ground sloth or megatherium — the very specimen
described by Owen ; the great deer once inhabiting the
Emerald Isle and miscalled the Irish "elk"; and the
huge moa of New Zealand, taller than the tallest
ostrich. Whales and elephants, mice and humming
birds — all are here; the animals are chiefly repre-
sented by skeletons or good dissections, but a few
stuffed examples may also be seen.

The Hunters — John and William — were famous as

I 1 8 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

anatomists rather than as naturalists ; but their
versatile minds turned with ready interest to the
sciences ancillary to medicine. Thus the hibernation
of the hedgehog and the anatomy of the caracal
lynx occupied their attention, as did also the subject
of the present Essay, the beautiful nilgai antelope.

The nilgai {Boselaphus tr ago came lus) stands about
fifty-four inches high at the shoulder, and tapes about
six and a half feet in length ; the tail measures about
eighteen inches. The graceful head is rather small,
and is provided (in the males only) with a pair of
short, smooth, and nearly straight horns ; these are
triangular at the base, becoming cylindrical near the
tip. The muzzle during life is leaden colour,
coarsely granulated, and so moist as to appear
newly varnished ; it is provided with a number of
fine, long, delicate hairs or vibrissae. The neck is
flattish, and is scantily maned along the nape to the
withers ; the throat in the males bears a tuft of wiry
hair. The forelegs are longer than the hind ones,
and the withers are humped ; the tail is tufted and
reaches to the hocks. Young animals are brown,
and the females remain always of this colour ; but at
twelve months old the bulls begin to darken and
when fully adult are rich grey, tinged with blue or
brown. The under parts are white in both sexes,
as are also the fetlocks ; hence the name of " white-
footed antelope " applied to this species by Pennant.
There are a few white marks — on face, ears,

THE NILGAI ANTELOPE 119

and throat — which probably by breaking1 up the
outlines of the animal render it less conspicuous in
the bush than a uniformly coloured beast would be.
Average length of horns eight or nine inches ;
maximum recorded length 1 1 ^ inches.

Distributed over a limited portion of India (being
absent from Eastern Bengal and Ceylon) nilgai
inhabit thin forest or fairly open plain, going in
bands of from seven to twenty individuals ; they
keep much to the same patch of forest, and both
graze and browse. Like the African elephant, they
care little for shelter from the hot sun. Nilgai are
said to be good climbers ; they can break into a
heavy gallop if alarmed. These antelopes do
considerable damage by rifling sugar-cane planta-
tions ; in the jungle they feed on the acid douna
(Phyllanthus) and other fruits, and on the leaves of
the zizyphus or ber tree. Although much preyed on
by tigers, nilgai are still relatively abundant, even
in the midst of densely populated country. In India
man and beast live side by side ; no war of exter-
mination is permitted ; even the usages of the chase
are guarded by rules of etiquette. On application
from the villagers, duly accredited shikarris are now
and then permitted to thin out too destructive game;
but there is no wanton slaughter, no shooting
en battue merely to make an enormous bag. How
different, alas ! to South Africa, where guns of a
sort have been supplied to all and sundry, and the

120 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

game animals have well-nigh been exterminated by
men powerless to create them !

The date of the discovery of the nilgai by
Europeans is unknown ; Mr. Ogilby, however,
supposed it to be identical with the hippelaphus of
Aristotle, and Alexander's troops may have met
with it in the Punjab in 326 — 325 B.C. Bernier, who
in 1664 travelled from Delhi to Cashmere with the
Mogul Aurengzeb, states that the king used to hunt
nilgai. The herd having been surrounded by an
army of hunters, the nets were gradually approxi-
mated until a space was enclosed, into which
Aurengzeb and his party entered, killing the terrified
quarry with spears and muskets. The king some-
times sent quarters of nilgai venison as presents to
his nobles, just as to-day the squire sends to his
friends gifts of hare and pheasant.

Although the above details are interesting enough,
it is remarkable that the present species was first
accurately described, long after its discovery, not
from skin or skeleton, but from a captive specimen
living in London. The nilgai is par excellence a
menagerie beast, if not indeed the menagerie beast ;
its history is so intricately bound up with progress in
the art of keeping vivaria that the remainder of this
Essay will be devoted to outlining the subject, such
appearing by for the best method of dealing with this
antelope. To begin with, the original specimen was
a male, sent alive from Bengal, and was described

THE NILGAI ANTELOPE 121

in 1745 by Dr. James Parsons, F.R.S., in vol. 43 of
the Philosophical Transactions. A pair sent from
Bombay by Governor Cromelin as a gift to Lord
Clive arrived in August, 1767, and presently began
to breed.

About this time the nilgai appears to have been
quite extensively known in England, considering the
length and uncertainty of the then voyage round the
Cape. Lord Clive had several in his possession ; it
is recorded that the two bulls which he had used to
drop on the knees when fighting. William Hunter's
nilgai also used to drop on their knees when he
entered the paddock — a habit innocently interpreted
as a sign of submission, but much more likely a
menace ! One of Hunter's animals, however,
became tame enough to lick the hand ; it allowed
itself to be stroked, and would feed from the hand
like a horse. This beast disliked the odour of
turpentine or spirits, and refused food from those
who had handled either. Mr. Sullivan presented
two live nilgai to the then queen ; after its death one
of them was dissected by the Hunters, and the skin
and skeleton was preserved. William IV. kept
nilgai in the royal menagerie at Sandpit Gate,
Windsor Park ; the animals in this collection were
well looked after, and provided with ample paddocks
and shelter trees.

In 1826 the Zoological Society was founded ; two
years later the famous historic collection in Regent's

122 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

Park was established. An important accession to
the already extensive menagerie was made in 1830,
when William IV. presented to the Society the
whole of his Windsor collection — kangaroos, zebras,
deer, emeus, and so forth. More than a hundred
men were set to work to drain the banks of the
Regent's Canal, and in making houses for the new
animals. Amongst this series were two nilgai, a
species which afterwards bred at the farm at
Kingston-on-Thames. The first example seems to
have been born in February, 1831 ; by April 30,
1838, no less than nine nilgai had been bred at
Kingston, together with kangaroos, armadillos, and
many other interesting animals.

The present species was also represented in the
once famous menagerie of Exeter 'Change, where
now Exeter Hall stands. This institution consisted
of a clumsily shaped building, its front projecting
over the street, with shops beneath ; it was covered
over with paintings of lions, tigers, and so forth,
while a sham Yeoman of the Guard harangued the
passers-by on the wonders to be seen within.
The exhibition consisted of various wild animals
arranged in a large room, with one apartment below
and another above it ; this latter contained an
elephant, housed at the top of the building! Amongst
the animals shown were a true quagga, a zebra, and
a tapir ; a nilgai lived amid these unnatural sur-
roundings for six years — a tough test, surely ! The

THE NILGAI ANTELOPE 123

proprietor afterwards removed to Charing Cross
Mews, and later to Walworth, where he set up the
Surrey Zoological Gardens. This latter collection
was sold by auction by Mr. Stevens in November,
1856; Frank Buckland attended the sale, and
records that the boa constrictor was sold for five
guineas, and a nilgai for ^9. A spiteful zebra
hybrid (zebra x wild ass) fetched ^"8 ; it had
formerly belonged to Edward Stanley, i3th Earl of
Derby, in his day a famous naturalist.

Lord Derby's splendid collection at Knowsley
Hall covered more ground than even the Zoological
Gardens at that time ; and though the buildings
were plain even to unsightliness, there could be no
question of the value of the animals which they
housed. Quaggas (now extinct), zebras, springbok
and other antelopes, American bison, llamas, alpacas,
and various species of deer and kangaroos were
amongst the treasures at Knowsley. In a special
paddock was kept the famous herd of eland antelope
(till then unknown alive in England), and with
them a troop of nilgai — one bull and four cows.
Appropriately enough were these two species placed
together, though, doubtless, the good Earl little
guessed how appropriately — for on the plains of
India the nilgai represents the tragelaphine antelopes
— eland, bushbuck, and kudu — of the African jungles.1

1. A yearling nilgai from the Knowsley menagerie is now in the
Leyden Museum. Six others were also bred by Lord Derby.

124 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

Tragelaphs— classed as antelopes by most writers —
differ markedly from the rest of the Bovidce in the
character of their horns, which, originally triangular
in section, have in the course of evolution assumed a
spiral curvature. The curious anoa of Celebes — half
ox, half antelope — has its horns simple and almost
triangular; but those of the nilgai show commencing
evolution by the half turn into which they are twisted.
Passing on to the African tragelaphs, one finds a well-
developed twist in the horns of the eland and
harnessed antelopes, whilst the weapons of the
greater and lesser kudu are handsome indeed in
their open, graceful spiral. Per contra, the horns of
typical antelopes — sable, roan, oryx — show either
transverse annulations, or else rings of growth, by
which the gradual development may be traced from
youth to age ; but nilgai and eland, harnessed
antelope and kudu do not exhibit such markings.

The occurrence of a tragelaph like the nilgai in
India — the only representative of a race otherwise
African — reminds one of the curious African element
in the fauna of Asia ; thus groups now entirely
confined to the Dark Continent are found as
fossils in the Pliocene strata of the Himalayas.
Chimpanzees and huge baboons once ranged the
the forests of Northern India, from which they are
now entirely absent. The Chinese giraffe, as graceful
if not quite so tall as its descendant of Uganda, once
paced the woods of the Pliocene East. Two species

THE NILGAI ANTELOPE 125

of hippopotamus frequented the Narbada valley, and
a third inhabited the Siwalik marshes, while harte-
beestand sable antelope grazed where the Himalayas
now stand. Truly to a present-day naturalist would
such a world have appeared topsy turvy, and a
Chinese giraffe indeed a rara avis !

Some ten years after the disposal of Lord Derby's
collection, the Jardin d'Acclimatation was established
in Paris. In the Bois de Boulogne there arose a
greater Knowsley than Lord Derby had dreamt of,
and on October 6, 1860, the Emperor himself inau-
gurated this magnificent zoological garden, specially
designed for acclimatising new and rare animals under
the skies of Europe. I ts successes have been many —
eland, giraffe, waterbuck, wapiti, nilgai, and other
animals have been bred here ; the large paddocks and
leafy pathways of this naturalists' paradise render it
an almost ideal institution. At the much older
Jardin des Plantes the writer recently saw a fine
exhibit of a herd of nilgai — quite a number of these
interesting beasts in a spacious paddock well suited
to their requirements.

In conclusion, the nilgai is preeminently adapted
for extensive acclimatisation in Europe. Its pleasing
outlines, considerable stature, and the handsome blue
coat of the bulls render it a truly ornamental species,
well suited for introduction into parks as a change
from everlasting fallow deer ; a troop of nilgai seen
in the distance amid the oaks and elms of an English

126 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

park would indeed lend enchantment to the view.
In Italy the experiment has already been made, and
the herd of sixty head belonging to the King of
Italy is a good object lesson. The nilgai stands for
the study of animals amid natural surroundings,
on an ampler scale than can be attempted in the
best regulated Zoo ; and though one may never
see bison roaming over Exmoor, giraffes in the New
Forest, or musk oxen in the Highlands, yet as
an incentive to wider study in the future one may
reasonably count on the success already achieved
with that charming antelope — or rather tragelaph—
the nilgai.

THE BEISA ANTELOPE.

" Still the same burning sun, no cloud in heaven,
The hot air quivers, and the sultry mist
Floats o'er the desert with a show
Of distant waters, mocking their distress."

An immense plain, ocean-like in its expanse,
baked and cracked by the fierce African sun, dotted
with anthills, and encumbered with a scraggy growth
of bushes and dry harsh grass. Here and there a
clump of parasol-topped mimosas give some variety
to the landscape ; brilliant coloured rocks of every
tint add intensity to the picture ; far in the blue
distance, shimmering in the heat haze, rises the
conical peak of a snow-capped mountain, refreshing
to the eye amid the heat of Africa.

In spite of its inhospitable appearance, the vast red
steppe is a veritable naturalist's paradise. Near by
a few coursers run plover-like over the flinty surface ;
hawks and eagles swoop on outstretched pinions
over the flats, casting shadows of inky blackness;
ground squirrels pop in and out of their holes, or
sit bolt upright in marmot fashion to stare at
passers-by. A few mongooses patter with snaky
undulations about the bases of the anthills, thrusting
their short muzzles into or under everything, and
continually squeaking in a low tone. A troop of
Grant's gazelle, long-horned and red-coated, are

128 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

spread out over the plain like Masai cattle, apparently
grazing on flints. Three or four sullen rhinoceroses,
their hides red with dried mud, stand like statues
save for the continual flicking of their shapeless ears.
A great herd of zebras — equine giants beautifully
striped in sable and silver — the magnificent Grevy's
species — bask at a water hole after drinking ; mixed
with them is a troop of large antelopes with long
rapier horns, faces smartly pied in black and white,
and tawny coats smartened by a lateral line of sable.
These are the handsome beisa antelope of Somaliland
and British East Africa ; grand animals indeed from
the sportsman's and naturalist's standpoint, gallant
quarry and strikingly picturesque — formidable foes
too, on occasion, as both man and beast have learnt
before now.

The beisa (Oryx beisa) — baet of the Somalis —
stands about four feet high at the shoulder ; it is
specially noteworthy for the long beautiful horns
which, sweeping almost directly backwards in the
plane of the face, are annulated for two-thirds their
length, smooth and pointed at the tip. The figure
is sturdy, with rather high withers ; the neck-mane
is directed fot^wards ; there is no tuft of hair on the
throat, but the tail is tasselled. In general coloration
the harsh coat of the beisa recalls that of a donkey —
a semblance heightened by the curious facial markings,
which suggest a headstall. A black triangular patch,
with its base at the base of the horns, decorates the

THE BEISA ANTELOPE I 29

forehead ; it is connected by a narrow black line
with the apex of a much larger triangle, reversed as
it were to meet it, covering the greater part of the
face ; a black stripe runs through the eye towards
the edge of the lower jaw. The general body colour
is tawny ; a black line runs along the back, and
another separates the tawny of the body from the
white under-surface. The forelegs are banded with
black above the "knee" and a longitudinal black line
runs down the cannon bone ; the hind legs are uniform
whitish, not banded, and the cannon bone is unstriped.
The average length of beisa horns is about 30 inches
in the bulls, the cows bearing longer and thinner
weapons ; maximum recorded length 36 inches (bull)
and 37 inches (cow).1

Distributed throughout Somaliland, with part of
British East Africa, and once occurring as far north
as Suakin on the Red Sea, the southern range of this
fine oryx is limited by the Tana River, beyond which
it is replaced by the fringe-eared beisa, and yet
further south by the splendid gemsbok of the Cape.
A true desert animal, it often occurs far from water,
feeding morning and evening on the harsh bamboo-
like grass of the steppes, and finding in the fleshy
tissues of various succulent plants (and perhaps also
in the night dew) sufficient moisture for its needs.
Beisa go in herds of from half a dozen to fifty

1 . 39 inches is the record now given of a female obtained in Somaliland
by Mr. E. P. Hare.

I3O NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

individuals. The bulls fight furiously amongst
themselves, using their long horns as effective
rapiers ; the thick skin of the shoulders conversely
provides them with a buckler, and the Midgan
Somalis, recognising this, themselves use beisa hide
in constructing their fighting shields. Beisa are
frequently attacked by lions — though one would
suppose that even a lion would hesitate to face such
formidable weapons as the horns of this antelope.1

Spirited and pugnacious, beisa often lose an eye
in battle ; often, too, a horn is snapped off, so that
the animal becomes a unicorn.

The beisa may really be the original of the
unicorn ; some have supposed the gemsbok to claim
this title — a beast little likely in its far southern
habitat to have attracted the notice of the ancients.
But the beisa, as we have seen, even in the last
century occurred as near to the Egyptian frontier as
Suakin ; and the cartanozon which the Persians
designed on the monuments of Persepolis cor-
responded marvellously with the present species.
It had indeed but one horn ; but if the sculptor,
ignorant of perspective, had drawn the pair of
parallel straight horns as one (the further one being
accurately covered by its fellow) the difficulty
vanishes. Similarly, a clumsy attempt to depict the

1. S weirs, an elderly Boer cited by Gordon Gumming, stated that he
had found the carcasses of the allied Cape gemsbok and the lion rotting
together on the veldt — the lion slain by the antelope, which had been
unable to rid himself of his humbled foe.

Mai/ or August, 1900.
BEISA.

Note the curious pied markings on the face and the long
straight horns.

THE BEISA ANTELOPE

animal charging with lowered head would account
for the forward inclination of the horn so familiar to
all students of heraldry. The unicorn of fable had a
slender straight horn, ringed at the base; a reversed
mane ; a flowing tail ; divided hoofs; the colour and
size of an ass, and black markings on the face —
surely here is a veritable portrait of the beisa !
Perhaps also the beatrix antelope of Arabia (much
resembling a small beisa in outlines) contributed its
share to the legends of Crusaders and others ; in
this connection one remembers how Sir John Barrow,
having found in a cave a Caffre drawing of a roan
antelope head, supposed himself to be on the track
of a true unicorn.1

On April 17, 1848, Baron von Miiller met at
Melpes in Kordofan a man who used to sell him
specimens of animals. One day this man asked him
if he wished for an A'nasa — a thick-bodied beast the
size of a donkey, and tailed like a boar. It had a
single long horn on its forehead, which it raised on
seeing an enemy ; the negroes often killed it to make
shields from its skin. Here again one sees a
recognisable portrait of some kind of oryx, if not
actually the beisa. The erection of the horn is
readily explained by the animal raising its head to
stand at gaze in presence of an enemy.2

1. Renshaw : " Natural History Essays," pp. 76-8.

2. Span-man relates a similar fable current in his day (1775) at the
Cape. The horn of the black rhinoceros was supposed to lie flat in
repose, the animal raising it on observing an enemy !

132 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

First discovered in 1832 by Dr. Riippell of
Frankfort, and described and figured by him in 1835,
the beisa remained for a long time comparatively
unknown.1 Even in 1857 Dr. J. E. Gray remarked
that "the O. Biessa of Riippell" appeared to be "only
a small variety of O. gaze Ha " (the gemsbok or Cape
oryx), and compared it with the dwarf kudu which,
discovered by Sir Cornwallis Harris in Abyssinia,
was only half the size of the kudu of the Cape. The
beisa (and the lesser kudu also for that matter) is now
of course recognised as a valid species distinct
enough from any other ; but material for study long
continued rare, and as late as 1874 only one specimen
seems to have been received alive into Europe.

On May 28, 1874, a male specimen presented by
Admiral Arthur Cumming of H.M.S. " Glasgow " to
the Zoological Society arrived at its destination ; a
lantern photograph of this individual was afterwards
employed by the writer in pleading the cause of the
vanishing fauna of Africa.2 In the summer of 1874
the French Vice-Consul at Aden sent a specimen to
the Jardin des Plantes at Paris. In 1875 the
Sultan of Zanzibar presented to the Zoological
Society a female, whose portrait afterwards appeared
in the Garden Guide ; thus the Zoological Society

1. The horns of this antelope were known as early as 1811 ; in which
year Mr. Salt, the Abyssinian traveller, presented a pair to the Royal
College of Surgeons' Museum.

2. Renshaw : "The Vanishing African Fauna." Lecture before the
Selborne Society, 1899. The beisa is seen with its head down as if feeding,
and appears to be in excellent condition.

May or August, 1900.
THE "UNICORN."

Beisa (same individual as in preceding illustration) showing how the
straight parallel horns, seen sideways, appear as one. There are strong
reasons for supposing the beisa to be the original of the unicorn.

THE BEISA ANTELOPE 133

possessed the only living pair in Europe. Other
specimens were received in 1877 and 1878.

On April 12, 1881, the first calf ever bred in
captivity (a female) was born in the Gardens. A
coloured drawing of the calf was exhibited at a
meeting of the Zoological Society held on May 17,
1 88 1, and a figure of mother and young was published
in the Proceedings of the Society for that year. The
calf as figured looks remarkably like a foal, save for
the tiny spike horns and the somewhat faint facial
markings ; the mother stands behind it at a little
distance, capitally drawn, the very long horns
characteristic of female beisa showing up well
against the sky, and the sable stripes on face and
flank contrasting effectively with the general body
colour. In September, 1885, a second calf was born
of the same parents. The mother died, but the calf
learnt to suck milk from a bottle, and butted the
keeper if the suction tube fell out of its mouth !
Unfortunately it did not survive. A photograph of
this second youngster will be found in Captain Nott's
"Wild Animals Photographed and Described."
The beisa has bred twice in the collection at
Calcutta. On May 25, 1878, a young animal of this
species was received at the Calcutta Zoological
Gardens ; it was turned out into an enclosure, and
being unfortunately tempted after its month's voyage
to make a hearty meal of fresh grass, gorged itself
to repletion. It was found dead of excessive dilatation

134 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

of the stomach — killed by its own gluttony, like
Henry II. after his feast of lampreys !

In conclusion a few words may be devoted to two
other antelopes — the gemsbok and the fringe-eared
oryx — which have been confused with the beisa.
The gemsbok is a magnificent creature standing
four feet at the withers and bearing a splendid pair
of horns which, longer even than those of the beisa,
attain a measurement of from 40 to 47^2 inches.
The general colour of the gemsbok is a fine vinous
buff; it also carries a jet black headstall, a reversed
mane, and a tufted tail ; but the black triangle just
above the muzzle is much longer and more expanded
than in the beisa, fusing with the stripe which runs
through the eye. The rump bears a black patch,
and another adorns the outside of the thighs ; the
cannon bones in both fore and hind legs are
handsomely decorated with a longitudinal black
stripe. In addition to these superficial markings the
gemsbok has a tuft on the throat absent in the beisa.

The fringe-eared oryx (Oryx callotis] stands about
46 inches at the withers. On the plains of the
Kilimanjaro district it replaces the beisa; it is rather
smaller than that animal, and the coat is of a richer
ruddier tawny, the facial markings are practically
the same, save that the stripe running through the
eye frequently reaches the edge of the lower jaw and
even passes under the throat; there is no black patch
on the front of the cannon bone. The fringe-eared

A PAIR OF GEMSBOK.

The gemsbok is the finest of all the oryx antelopes. Note the tuft of hair on
the larynx, and the great development of the markings on the face, which unite,
as it were, to form a headstall. Both fore and hind legs are handsomely marked
with black. Originals in the Natural History Museum, South Kensington.

THE BEISA ANTELOPE 135

oryx is, however, best known by the long beautiful
tufts of hair which adorn the ears ; the animal
accentuates their graceful droop by carrying them a
little lower than the beisa does, so that they resemble,
on a small scale, those of the roan antelope. The
type specimen of the Oryx callotis, obtained from
near Mt. Kilimanjaro, was at first supposed to be a
beisa until further examination showed it to be new.
The type head, exhibited at a meeting of the
Zoological Society on March 15, 1892, is now in the
National Collection ; the horns are 23^ and 22
inches in length respectively.

Thus the beisa antelope is plainly separable as a
species entirely distinct even from its nearest
congeners ; and an interest attaches to it which they
do not arouse, in that it is probably the original of
the unicorn. For this reason it is one of the most
fascinating of all the antelopes, and well deserves the
attention not only of the sportsman and the naturalist,
but also of the antiquarian and the student of
heraldry.

THE BEATRIX ANTELOPE.

" For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs
Close to the ground."

Much Ado about Nothing, Act III., Scene I.

Charming in outlines, pleasing in coloration, and
diminutive in size, the little beatrix oryx is remarkable
as being the smallest of its genus, and the only one
which occurs outside Africa. As far as is known it
appears to be exclusively an Arabian species ; for
although Col. Hamilton Smith observed in 1826 "we
have seen the head of one shot on the west side of
the Indus, in the deserts of the Mekran," the
statement requires confirmation and there may well
have been an error in locality.

The beatrix antelope (Oryx beatrix) — el walrush
and el bakrus of the Bahrein Arabs — stands about
35 inches at the shoulder. The long horns attain
an average length of 25 inches, with a maximum of
27 inches. The general body colour is whitish, as
are also the ears and mane ; a blackish brown
triangle adorns the forehead, and on each cheek is a
larger patch of the same colour, uniting with its
fellow under the throat. A faint brown longitudinal
stripe runs between the belly and the flanks ; the
tail tassel is black, while on each fetlock a snowy
ring shows up in smart contrast to the brown hue of
the rest of the limb.1 The coloration of the beatrix

1. The foot of the beatrix thus appears to be encased in a dainty white
slipper, with a smart black toecap.

11

^ I

TJ
V

So

i

THE BEATRIX ANTELOPE 137

is most singular, for instead of being dark above and
lighter below (the usual arrangement) the disposition
of the tints is exactly reversed ; like the young of
the grison, and the honey ratel at all ages, the
beatrix has the darker hue on the lower portion of
the body. The typical oryx coloration, rich
enough in the gemsbok though paling in the beisa,
is seen in the beatrix actually blanching to white.

The beatrix antelope appears to have first been
described by Thomas Pennant in 1781, from two
drawings then in the British Museum; in attempting
to figure the species in his ''History of Quadrupeds"
some mistake seems to have arisen, the heavily-built
animal with white limbs, and eye-streak barely
extending to the jaw, indicating a beisa antelope
rather than the present species.1 Pennant further
styles his figure "leucoryx antelope;" it is not,
however, the leucoryx of modern writers, as shown
plainly by the uniformly coloured neck and the
straightness of the horns. The original specimens
were kept by Sultan Houssein, Shah of Persia, in a
park eight leagues from the capital, and were figured
from life in 1712 by order of Sir John Lock, agent
of the East India Company at Ispahan.2

The present species was redescribed in 1857 by

1. Similarly Dr. Shaw compares Pennant's figure to the pasan or
Egyptian antelope (probably =•. beisa or gemsbok— -or both), "had the figure
alone of this animal been given, without its description, one would almost
be tempted to suppose it a bad representation of the former species."

2. An interesting old oil painting of a beatrix oryx is still preserved
in the Royal College of Surgeons' Museum.

138 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

Dr. J. E. Gray, who named it after the Princess
Beatrice, born in that year. This " type " specimen
was a male, being the survivor of a pair which had
been sent from Bombay by " Capt. John Shepherd
of the India House" as a gift to the Zoological
Society. Dr. Gray surmised that although shipped
from India the antelope had probably been " brought
from the shores of the Red Sea." The new animal
was at first supposed to be a half-grown gemsbok —
a pardonable mistake when one remembers the pale
colouration of gemsbok calves. On its death soon
afterwards the animal was obtained for the National
Collection, where it still remains.

Nothing more appears to have been heard of
this smart little oryx, accounted a curiosity even
in its native land, until in November, 1864,
Major O. B. St. John and Col. Pelly, when visiting
the Imaum of Muscat at his country house, were
shown a " wild cow" kept in an adjoining yard.
This animal — an adult female beatrix — was at once
presented to Col. Pelly, who sent it to the Botanical
Gardens at Poonah ; it was said to have come from
a district situated a week's camel ride over the
mountains. In 1869-70 Col. Pelly obtained a pair
of beatrix for the late Mr. Gwyn Jefferies, F.R.S.
They were so tame as to be allowed to go about free,
and lived for some time at the Colonel's country
house near Bushire. The male was accidentally
killed ; he was not, however, a good specimen, having

THE BEATRIX ANTELOPE 139

imperfect horns. On March 26, 1872, Mr. Jefferies
deposited the female in the Regent's Park collection.
In 1878 a male beatrix, supposed to have been taken
in the Hedjaz Passes, some 150 miles east of the
Red Sea, was presented to the Zoological Gardens
by Commander F. M. Burke.

In 1894 Dr. A. S. G. Jayakar, who had already
presented many interesting specimens of mammals
to the National Collection, sent home a further
series of great value. The specimens had all been
collected in the Oman district of Arabia, and
included examples of all the mammals known to
occur there ; especially interesting was the skin of
an immature female beatrix — the first wild-killed
specimen ever sent to England. The fur of this
individual was exceedingly short and close — perhaps
the summer pelage. Besides this oryx, the collection
contained several examples of a very rare hedgehog ;
a new diminutive species of hare; and a fine new
goat of a sandy or brownish colour.

In October 1881 Lord Lilford presented to the
Zoological Society two female beatrix which Lieut.
Col. S. B. Miles, H.M. Consul at Muscat, had
obtained for him in the great desert behind the
mountains of Oman ; unfortunately, only one of
them was in good condition, the other having been
injured about the head. About 1 895 a specimen in the
the Regent's Park collection was photographed, and in
a lantern slide now before me appears to have been a

140 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

really fine animal, with long slightly curved horns
and a distinct neck mane ; a good specimen was also
living in the New York Zoological Park in 1903.
Lastly, in April, 1906, a pair of live beatrix were
offered for sale by Cross of Liverpool.

In 1905 the writer spent some time in studying a
pair of young beatrix in the gardens of the Zoological
Society ; a photograph then taken is reproduced in
this book. These oryx were remarkable for a
number of transverse markings on the neck and
withers, perhaps corresponding to the underlying
vertebrae ; and also for the beautiful pinkish hue
which suffused their coats, recalling the exquisite
roseate tinge on the breast of Ross' gull. They
were fond of sparring with each other, butting their
heads together like calves at play ; the stronger of
the two was rather inclined to bully, driving off his
mate when the fit took him by prodding or
threatening to prod with his horns. Such squabbles
were soon made up, the two licking each other's
coats in the most amicable manner. The cry of the
beatrix is a hoarse braying grunt.

Rare as it is in zoological gardens, the present
species seems to be still rarer as a museum exhibit ;
as late as 1899 no Continental museum (save perhaps
that of Paris) possessed any specimens at all. A
Paris example bears the record horns, which tape 27
inches ; other specimens are in the Natural History
Museum at South Kensington, and consist of : —

THE BEATRIX ANTELOPE 14!

1. Type specimen described by Gray in 1857.

2. Skin presented to the British Museum by
Lieut. Col. Jayakar in 1894.

3. Adult female (Col. Felly's specimen).

4. Skeleton of young female obtained on the
Persian Gulf by B. T. Ffinch, Esq., F.Z.S.

5. 6, etc. Some skins and skulls collected in
Muscat by Dr. A. S. G. Jayakar.

The foregoing account comprises practically all our
knowledge of the Arabian oryx. Happy is the
country that has no history ; happy is the species in
the same case — for, too often, such history is but a
record of extermination. Etiam periere ruinae is a
comment applicable to many extinct animals equally
with the vanished cities of the ancients ; that this
exquisite little creature may never require an obituary
notice will be the wish of every naturalist.

THE LEUCORYX ANTELOPE.

" In densis etiam ssevissima bestia sylvis
Trux stabulatur oryx."

Oppian.

A sheltered rocky valley in the African wilderness.
A feeble stream trickles through a struggling tangle
of acacia and terebinth, which rear their scrubby
heads from a sullen soil covered with flints and
adorned with brightly coloured pebbles. A pair
of little black and white birds — desert chats — flit
briskly from stone to stone, undeterred by the
awful silence, and uttering now and then a chacking
note. Two or three jerboa rats, long-legged and
wide-eared, sit sleepily basking at the entrance to
their burrow. Coiled up like an ammonite shell, a
cerastes viper lies half buried in the sand. A cloud
of insects dance in playful gambol above the .heated
earth ; skink lizards, alert and glittering, flash
amongst the pebbles like streaks of fire. A group
of large antelope (sandy white and rufous in colour,
and armed with long horns) take their siesta in
peace — a party of leucoryx very much at home.

Evening. The nocturnal life of the oasis begins
to show itself. An incessant hum of insects rises
from the scanty herbage ; jerboas run in dozens over
the sand, croaking as they go ; a jackal howls in the
•distance. The leucoryx begin to lick their coats ;
rising one after another they stretch themselves,
and stand with powerful figures and sweeping horns

THE LEUCORYX ANTELOPE 143

outlined against the fast-darkening sky — a magnifi-
cent group of animal statues. One sturdy bull
rakes his horns nonchalantly against a convenient
rock ; another devotes nearly five minutes to
scratching his muzzle. Caring little for the water,
where a covey of sand-grouse have just alighted to
drink, the great antelopes begin to pasture. The
sand-grouse spread themselves thickly over the
little valley; the rough slopes are covered with them,
drinking, pecking, or walking about with nodding
gait, like so many pigeons.

Suddenly there is an alarm snort from the old
female who acts as sentinel ; every animal is
instantly at attention, staring hard at a small group
of parti-coloured beasts which have just entered
the opposite end of the valley. Square-headed
and large-eared, with long legs and a mixed
coat of black, white, and yellow — these are the
terrible wild dogs which ravage the desert in their
nightly wanderings. There is a pause of a few
seconds; then the leucoryx are in full flight, leaping
and bounding like ibexes, and scattering the flints
behind them in a stony shower. Silently the terrible
hounds spread out, trying to encircle their quarry ;
too quick for them, the oryx top a neighbouring
ridge and slip like lightning down the opposite side.
Mute yet determined, their white tails gleaming in
the fast-growing darkness, the tortoiseshell pack
sweeps after them, keen, persevering, relentless ;

144 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

then the hot African night settles down like a curtain
over the desert.

The leucoryx (Oryx leucoryx] — abou harb of the
Kubabish Arabs — stands about 40 inches at the
withers ; it is a fine sturdy beast, its long curved
horns and sweeping tail giving it a thoroughly wild
game-like appearance that renders it most attractive.
The general colour of the leucoryx is reddish or
reddish white ; the neck and shoulders are ruddy
brown, and there are brown patches on the limbs,
somewhat as in other members of the family. The
usual style of ornamentation is, however, but faintly
developed. The triangular face markings of the
other oryxes occur in the present species, as also the
stripe running through the eye; but they are marked
in greyish brown rather than black or blackish, while
there is no dorsal stripe at all, and only a faint
longitudinal one. The legs and abdomen are
whitish ; tail tassel black. Maximum length of
horns 3 feet 3^/6 inches.

At the present day the leucoryx inhabits both
Nubia and Senegal ; it is also recorded from Lokoja
on the Niger, and probably, like the addax antelope
and fennec fox, ranges right across Africa. It
appears to have been known to the ancient Egyptians
under the name of toa or tao ; and in the inner
chamber of the Great Pyramid of Memphis a number
of these antelopes are depicted. Some are being led
along by a cord round the neck or by the horns,

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THE LEUCORYX ANTELOPE 145

others driven — apparently as trophies or tribute.
The Musee Alaoui at Tunis contains a Roman
pavement depicting a lion attacking a beast supposed
to be a leucoryx.

Hemprich and Ehrenberg were the first modern
naturalists to meet with the present species and to
bring home examples; they saw it in 1820-1825
in Dongola, between Ambukol and Simrie, and
hunted it on horseback with the Arabs. Lichtenstein
of Berlin described and figured the species about
1827 ; his work was, however, somewhat anticipated
by the presence of an adult male from Senegal in
the Jardin des Plantes menagerie as early as 1819.
The first living example in England seems to have
been the individual which was brought home about
J^35 by Mr. Musket, and passed into the possession
of his mother at Edmonton. The animal — a female—
subsequently became troublesome, and in 1837
Mrs. Musket gladly sold it to Lord Derby for ^50;
the Earl added it to his collection at Knowsley.
Some time afterwards M. Reboulet arrived at
Southampton with some giraffes, a pair of addax
antelope, and a male leucoryx ; Lord Derby wished
to purchase the addax and leucoryx, and sent the
head keeper down with the price (^100) agreed for
them without the giraffes. The Frenchman, however,
wishing to sell all his animals in one lot, delayed
under various pretexts, until he eventually sold them
all to Mr. Cross of the Surrey Zoological Gardens.

146 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

On Mr. Cross retiring from business about 1843, the
antelopes were transferred by him to his brother-
in-law, Mr. Herring, from whom the persevering
Lord Derby eventually purchased them for ^114.
Lord Derby thus had the only living pair of leucoryx
in England. Two calves were bred, though neither
lived ; the first was sent to the British Museum.
The second was born dead about June 19, 1845 ;
the mother died in 1846, having then been about
eleven years in England. The two adult animals
and one of their calves were figured by Waterhouse
Hawkins in the " Gleanings from the Menagerie and
Aviary at Knowsley Hall," published in 1850; the
second leucoryx calf and one of the parents is
still preserved in the Derby Museum at Liverpool.1
On July 2, 1851, Lord Derby died, and his unrivalled
collection was sold by auction in the following
October by Mr. J. C. Stevens. The sale lasted a
week and attracted many naturalists; lot 73 consisted
of a pair of leucoryx — an Abyssinian male and a
Nubian female — which was selected by the Zoological
Society in virtue of Lord Derby's bequest. Calves
of this pair or their descendants were bred by the
Society in 1852, 1853, 1860, and i864.2

In captivity the leucoryx becomes partly tame, and

1. As late as 1900 the British Museum possessed no perfect example
of the leucoryx. A good, fresh male specimen from Kordofan was
however presented by Capt. Dunn, R.A.M.C., in 1903.

2. The first of these Zoo youngsters was figured in a well-known
natural history as "the first leucoryx born out of Africa." The calf is
shown at apparently some five weeks old ; it throve well and soon was
almost as tall a* its parents.

THE LEUCORYX ANTELOPE 147

will feed from the hand ; but it must here be insisted
upon that all the larger antelopes when caged become
very dangerous pets, far different from the timid,
pretty creatures of popular imagination. " He is at
times very fierce " wrote Lord Derby of his first
male leucoryx ; and the late Mr. A. D. Bartlett once
said that he would rather go into a cage with a lion
than enter the enclosure of a certain species of gnu.
Similarly the leucoryx in the Berlin collection
has been described as " rowdy fellow," liable
when in a blind fury to attack even his consort.
The present writer well remembers the powerful and
savage sable antelope which in 1895-7 was one of
the chief attractions of Barnum and Bailey's show, and
how it struck at the iron bars of its waggon,
apparently in sheer viciousness. Perhaps in some
of these cases the beast develops a malevolent
disposition from sheer ennui, the distractions natural
to it in the wild state — such as seeking its food,
taking sentry duty, running from its enemies, or
fighting with its rivals — all being removed. In
others the animal perhaps attacks in self-defence,
being in an enclosed space whence there is no retreat,
and the fear of man being upon it. In any case it
should be noted that "changed by captivity" does
not invariably mean "tamed by captivity;' the
hippopotamus which some three years ago in a
Continental collection killed the keeper with whom
he was quite familiar is an instance of this.

THE BUBALINE ANTELOPE.

"Animal Africae proprium, vituli cervive quadam similtudine."

Pliny on the bubaline antelope.

The game animals of Algeria, though neither so
large nor so varied as those of Southern Africa,
nevertheless, from their existence so near to Europe,
have a special charm of their own. Probably they
once produced many a trophy for the Roman
amphitheatre, for in the old days elephants roamed
the wilderness of the Tell and haunted the Atlas
Mountains;1 centuries afterwards lions still overran
the country in all directions, and panthers and
hyaenas infested the hill ravines. The caracal lynx
ranged the open Sahara after hare and bustard; the
hunting leopard ambushed the herds of antelope in
the wilderness of M'zab. The serval cat dwelt
among the tamarisks of Constantine ; the tiny fennec
fox haunted the dunes of Souf, and the cork forests
of Tunisia sheltered troops of Barbary stag and
sounders of wild boar. Gazelles of various species
replaced in the southern valleys the springbok of
austral Africa ; the beautiful addax, spiral-horned
and silver-coated, frequented the saline marshes to
lick the salt;2 while the fertile pastures and open

1. Hanno mentions herds of elephants, seen on the coast of Morocco,
in his voyage of B.C. 470 ; in Algena these animals persisted till between
300 and 700 A.D.

2. One of these salt lakes will be found figured from a photograph in
"Natural History Essays."

THE BUBALINE ANTELOPE 149

moorland of the Tell country were enlivened by
herds of that curious and now rare antelope — the
bubaline hartebeest.

The bubaline antelope (Bubalis buselaphus) —
begra el ouach of the Arabs — kargum of the
Touaregs — is the smallest, the dingiest, and the
quaintest of the hartebeest family. It stands about
44 inches high at the shoulder. The horns are
short, heavily ringed, and curiously curved in a
U -shape ; they are set upon a short pedicel rising from
the summit of the skull. The face bears a melancholy
expression ; the humped shoulders and sloping
quarters give the animal a deprecatory appearance,
as if it apologised for its very existence. The hair
in the middle of the forehead is curiously whorled,
with a central depression, as if this dejected-looking
creature had made one solitary effort to smarten up.
The general colour is greyish brown, with an
indistinct greyish area on each side of the muzzle ;
the tail tuft is black. The horns may attain a length
of 14^ inches over the curve, as seen in a specimen
in the National Collection.

The above is a description of the typical bubal of
Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco ; it is, however,
possible that this northern race is but a sub-
species of the West African hartebeest (Bubalis
major), distinguished by its deep brown face, and the
general body colour varying from fawn to sandy
grey. The horns of this western species may attain

I5O NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

a length of 22 inches (specimen in the National
Collection) ; young animals are pale-coloured, and
the coat again becomes light in old age. A specimen
of the Bubalis major is preserved in the Leyden
Museum; but it is scarce and -very little known to
European naturalists.

The bubaline hartebeest was the povftaXo? of
Aristotle, of Oppian, and of Pliny ; the buselaphus
of Gesner, who mentions it in his "History of Quad-
rupeds," published in 1520 ; and the Bos africanus of
Belon (1555). Thus it differs strikingly from most
other mammals of the Dark Continent, being probably
the very first of African big game to become known
to civilised Europe. Unfortunately, in the sixteenth
century, the " Barbary cow" was confused with the
very different hartebeest of the Cape, and the study
of both animals was thus hindered.

The caama or Cape hartebeest (Bubalis caama)
is a fine animal standing at the very opposite end of
the scale to the bubaline antelope, being larger and
(although thin, long, and angular) much more
cheerfully coloured. The general body tint is bright
reddish brown, darker on the back and pleasingly
shot with purple along the spine ; the face and
outside of the limbs are smartly patched with sable ;
there is a yellowish-white patch on the rump ; and
the tail tassel is black. The horns form a V-shape
and not a U as seen from the front. Essentially a
southern species, the caama once occurred in Cape

June 1903.
CAPE HARTEBEEST.

Note the short stout horns set on a special prolongation of the skull, the thin
bony angular body, the long legs, and the apology for a tail. The great length
of the face gives the animal a melancholy appearance.

THE BUBALINE ANTELOPE

Colony down to the very seashore ; further north it
is replaced by other species of hartebeest —
Lichtenstein's, Jackson's, Coke's, Swayne's, and so
forth — until one reaches the tetel of Kordofan, and
the bubal of Algeria.

Now in the sixteenth century Dr. Caius (well
known as the founder of Caius and Gonville College,
Cambridge) correctly described the bubal in his
contribution to Gesner's work, aptly styling the animal
boselaphus or " stag-ox." Buffon similarly described
the animal in his own Natural History, though without
figuring it. Dr. Allamand, however, thought fit to
add a picture to Buffon's description ; and unfortu-
nately delineated not the bubal but the caama, with
Buffon's original letterpress. To make matters
worse, Buffon, in publishing the sixth volume of
his Supplement, copied Allamand's figure of the
Cape hartebeest, and published it with a correct
representation of the bubaline species, quite ignorant
that each picture represented an entirely distinct
animal ! This comedy of errors was continued by
Gmelin ; but in 1819 Georges Cuvier separated the
two species, styling the Cape form Antilope caama,
and soundly basing his dictum on the series of skins
and skeletons of both animals then in the Paris
Museum.1

1. Seba's supposed figure of a bubal (plate 42, Tom L, fig. 4) likewise
represents the Cape hartebeest ; the error is the more singular as in his
day (1765) one might well suppose the caama far more difficult to obtain
than the bubal.

152 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

The first bubaline hartebeest seen alive in Europe
was probably the specimen kept for some time in the
Royal menagerie at Versailles and mentioned by
FredeVic Cuvier in his work '• La Menagerie du
Museum." Afterwards transported to the collection
at the Jardin des Plantes, it unfortunately received
severe injuries en route, and died soon after reaching
its destination. The first bubal in England was
exhibited in the London Zoological Gardens in 1832 ;
others have since been received, and at the time of
writing a female specimen has just been added to
Regent's Park collection after a hiatus of several
years. The bubal bred in Lord Derby's menagerie
at Knowsley Hall.

A fine herd of eight bubal (including several
born in the collection) was studied by the writer
some years ago in the Jardin des Plantes ; the
original members of the herd had been presented
by M. de St. Julien, Commandant Superieur
at Lalla Marnia, in the province of Oran in
Algeria. The writer took a number of photographs
of this quaint party ; the most interesting one
represented a young bubal and its parents, and
showed how the scraggy outlines of the little animal
lying on the ground counterfeited the angles of a
piece of rock. In the wild state, unfortunately, this
interesting antelope is but little known to Europeans;
apparently extinct in Egypt, it wanders in small
troops in the mountains of the Sahara

THE BUBALINE ANTELOPE 153

". . . in a waste place, where no man comes,

Or hath come since the making of the world."

Some three years ago the present writer passed
through much of the old antelope country ; flocks of
sheep and goats, with their Arab shepherds,
wandered where once bubal and addax grazed ; and
the haunt of leopard and hyaena was now marked
by a trim French town. The days of Gerard and
Bombonnel are indeed over! the wild fauna is
represented by bands of storks and flocks of
cisalpine sparrows rather than by troops of lions
and herds of antelope. Ancient Icosium has become
modern Algiers ; agents for the Roman games
would find it difficult to obtain from the entire
colony a single lion for the arena.

Let us picture the bubal as it lived in the old days,
when the Roman sentries guarded their outpost of
Calceus Herculis, and the Numidian archers harassed
ostrich and bustard on the very margin ofthe desert.

A wide uneven plain on the northern edge
of the Sahara. Far on the horizon, rose-pink
against a sky of turquoise, rise the Aures mountains,
the home of lion and wild sheep ; in the middle
distance an arid valley gives shelter to a spruce,
bright-eyed troop of gazelles. Round the remnants
of an encampment a few cisalpine sparrows, pert and
brisk as their London brethren, peck and bicker ; a
desert lark springs into the air, and with a feeble
ineffective song dives headlong into the bushes. In

154 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

the foreground are a small troop of hartebeest ; some
still crop the ungenerous herbage, others stand
full-fed with drooping heads, lazily flicking off the
flies. Perched on a convenient hillock, an old bubal
stands rigid on sentry duty. Hard by two bulls
drop on their knees and, swinging their foreheads
almost to the ground, strike each other's horns with
a dry clash. After a few minute's sparring they
stand at ease, apparently taking no notice of each
other. Suddenly, as by a prearranged signal, they
are at it again, and with whisking tails and straining
fetlocks strive for the mastery, raising a cloud of
dust in the Homeric struggle. A loud snort from
the leader ; all the bubal are instantly at gaze, all
animosities dropped as the the wiry forms spring
smartly to attention. Dim in the distance a band of
horsemen has alarmed the sensitive sentinel ; in a
moment the entire troop are off at a rocking gallop,
striking the earth with all four feet together, and
springing with immense bounds like indiarubber
toys. The startled bustards rise in the air like
automata or squat plover-fashion on the sand ; the
gazelles in the acacia brake stamp, snort, run together,
and dash off at full speed. Gaining a small
elevation, the bubals turn to stare. The horsemen
are Roman cavalry returning to their fortress
on military duty, not desert archers out after game.
Reassured, the antelope stand at ease ; yet those grim
warriors are a menace serious indeed, heralding the

THE BUBALINE ANTELOPE 155

day when the bubal shall be swept far into the
Central Sahara ; when France shall invade Africa
by " pacific penetration," planting gardens in the
Arab villages, and boring artesian wells in the thirsty
desert ; when the iron horse shall tear along beside
the old caravan track, and the rattle of the mitrailleuse
shall awaken the hills of Casa Blanca. Already
the shadow of Europe lies heavy over Africa — stern,
indomitable, world- wide, the pax Romana grasps
even the southern wilderness in a grip of steel.

THE BLESBOK ANTELOPE.

A vast saltpan, glittering in the sunshine and
covered with coarse sand. Its surface is besprinkled
with saline particles, as if touched with hoar frost;
in places the limestone is hollowed out by the
tongues of countless generations of game, which
have resorted hither to lick the salt. The pan is
black with the herds which have come up in the
night, and the air is full of their bleatings ; a strong
bovine scent comes down wind. A troop of gemsbok
graze on the scanty hay-like grass ; their pied faces,
great stature, and long swishing tails make them
handsome and conspicuous, and the morning sun,
glancing along their bayonet horns, makes them
glitter as if of actual steel. A troop of fourteen
ostriches sail past, with long necks outstretched and
snowy plumes extended to the breeze. Further out
a vast herd of springbok spreads over the flat, their
myriads pouring over the frosted surface like sand
released from a bag ; while blue wildebeest and Bur-
chell zebra, Cape eland and roan antelope play a less
conspicuous part in the gathering. A huge area
at the edge of the pan blooms in one glorious mass
of purple brown ; scanned attentively, it is seen to be
composed of that magnificent antelope, white-faced
and glossy-coated — the blesbok.

The blesbok (Damaliscus albifrons) — nunni of the

THE BLESBOK ANTELOPE 157

Bechuanas — stands about 4^ feet at the shoulder,
and measures about 6 feet in length. In general
outlines it resembles a modified hartebeest ; the
head, however, is but little elongated, the horns are
but slightly twisted, and the withers but slightly
humped. The tail bears a crest of backwardly
directed hair. The horns, annulated with almost
white rings, are slightly lyrate, and measure some
15 inches in length ; the record specimen (in Sir E.
Loder's collection) tapes 18^ inches over the curve.
In spite of its relationship to the bubal, the blesbok
is charmingly beautiful. The head and neck are
rich dark purplish brown, with a snow-white blaze
down the middle of the face ; the body tint is also
brown, exquisitely shot on the back with lilac ; the
ears are grey behind, as if lichened ; the chest and
croup are rufous ; the belly and inside of the limbs are
snow-white, and a pale brown disc is situated above
the tail. Elegantly coloured, gracefully proportioned,
the blesbok is one of the most charming denizens of
the veldt ; a four-footed Mercury, it is the living
embodiment of wild beauty and antelope grace.
The present species formerly occurred in Northern
Cape Colony, the Orange River Colony, and the
Transvaal, and still inhabits Bechuanaland. It is
now unfortunately a very scarce animal.

In the old days immense herds of blesbok roamed
all over Central South Africa. Northwards it
reached to the Molopo River, southwards it

NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

extended to the great Karroo Desert. The early
traveller, trekking though the blesbok country, saw
thousands upon thousands running in close-packed
ranks, their silvery muzzles lowered to the ground,
like hounds on scent ; his bivouac was enlivened by
the grunting and snorting of the buck as they fed
alongside the waggons ; rising early next morning
he beheld every little eminence alive with blesbok
and wildebeest. The blesbok roamed over the
sour veldt, cropping the harsh grass with relish, and
resorting to the sun-baked vleys to lick the
crystallized salt. Clouds of springbok were mingled
in their purple companies, running and trotting,
or leaping like shuttlecocks high in the air. Shaggy
troops of wildebeest wheeled and frolicked about the
wings of the advancing squadron, while the khoorhan
bustard ran and tumbled like a mountebank, and the
truculent wart-hog scampered off with tail absurdly
held upright. Wary and suspicious, blesbok were
usually difficult to approach ; when young ones
were about the animals became even more alert,
and quickly sought safety in flight, covering the
ground with a rapidity that left all pursuit far behind.
The blesbok seems to have been first discovered
on the high veldt of the Colesberg division of Cape
Colony — the so-called " bontebok flats" — perhaps by
the unknown farmer who (doubtless unaware of any
special interest attaching to his statement) noted
that the "bontebok" in the north of Cape Colony

THE BLESBOK ANTELOPE 159

were somewhat different to those of the south, and
is mentioned by Dr. Sparrman. Sir John Barrow
in 1797 seems also to have visited this haunt of the
blesbok, though not recognising the animals as new.
An antelope formerly exhibited in Exeter 'Change
is figured as the " blessbok " in Knight's " Museum
of Animated Nature ;" from the shape of the horns
it was obviously a young animal, as indeed is stated
in the accompanying letterpress, but there is a white
(not yellowish) mark near the tail, and the specimen
may not have been a blesbok at all, but an example
of the closely allied bontebok. Indeed a true
bontebok was exhibited in Exeter 'Change about
this time, according to the " Zoological Journal;"
the differences between blesbok and bontebok were
not realised till long after this date, and the
letterpress agrees with the latter rather than the
former animal. Steedman, however, in 1835 noted
the rarity of the former species in Cape Colony as
contrasted with its old-time abundance ; he states that
it was already "exceedingly scarce and only found
in the remoter districts, unless the bontebok
A. pygarga of Pallas, still found in the vicinity of
Zwellendam, should prove to be the same animal."
Sir Cornwallis Harris in 1837 made a special visit
to the bontebok preserve at Cape Agulhas, in order
to determine whether blesbok and bontebok were
one and the same species ; and in his large work on
South African animals gives a picture of the bontebok

l6o NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

flats, "which," he says, "would appear indebted for
their nomenclature to the double fact of possessing
within their wide limits neither a solitary antelope of
the species referred to, nor one single square rood
of level land!" On January 25, 1828, Dr. Von
Horstock obtained a pair of blesbok at Uitenhage,
and in October, 1833, a male at the same place—
these specimens are now at Leyden.

In 1844 Gordon Gumming noted the gradual
disappearance of the blesbok, observing that "to the
south a few small herds are still to be found within
the Colony ;" its headquarters were to the north of
the Vaal, in the sour veldt to the west of the
Witteberg Mountains. In 1861 it lingered in
considerable numbers on the north-eastern border of
Cape Colony, while as late as 1873 Holub found
great herds near Mafeking. In 1892, however,
these antelopes were practically extinct in Southern
Bechuanaland ; the progress of civilisation — and
especially the ruthless system of hide-hunting
pursued for years by the trek Boers and their sons —
had thinned down the once swarming blesbok to a
mere remnant. Indeed in 1894 it seemed but too
likely that the blesbok would soon share the fate of
dodo and great auk ; happily some few troops existed
on fenced farms, where leave was necessary to shoot
them. Sero sapiunt Phryges. The blesbok has now
been taken under Government protection ; and it
would seem that the pendulum is swinging back

May 1906.
BLESBOK.

Adult female. Note the white blaze (or bles)
down the middle of the face, and the humped
withers. The blesbok somewhat recalls the Cape
hartebeest also figured in this work.

THE BLESBOK ANTELOPE l6l

again, since a census of the blesbok surviving in the
Steynsburg division showed in June, 1904, a total of
650 individuals, being an increase of two hundred as
compared with 1903! A fine male specimen from
the Steynsburg herd is preserved in the South
African Museum at Capetown. Blesbok bred in the
Regent's Park collection in 1866, 1869, and -1870;
the new Natural History Museum at Paris contains
a blesbok calf born at the neighbouring Jardin
d'Acclimatation ; a pair of these animals were
exhibited in the Antwerp Zoo in 1869. Some ten
years since a young animal in the light brown coat
of immaturity was exhibited in Barnuni and Bailey's
show, and was rightly described as one of the rarest
antelopes then in captivity. In 1903 a blesbok was
exhibited in the New York Zoological Park.

The specimens at present in the Zoo consist of a
female presented by the Transvaal Museum and
Zoological Gardens on April 8, 1903, and a male
from Basutoland, purchased May 24, 1906. The
female is impatient of captivity, charging the railings
with lowered horns and whisking tail ; sometimes she
stands listening intently, afterwards lashing her sides ;
or drops on her knees to slowly scrape the ground with
her horns. I did not see this individual plough up
the ground, advancing in a straight line (still on her
knees) as a black wildebeest will do ; the strokes
were directed right and left in a half-hearted fashion,
as if in ennui. When inspecting an object closely

1 62 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

the animal snuffs air rapidly into the nostrils; a
strong sweet bovine scent is very noticeable.

No account of the blesbok would be complete
with some mention of the closely allied bontebok.
Handsomer than its cousin, the bontebok (Damaliscus
pygargus] is a blesbok but more so, the characters of
the latter — horns, humped back, pied coloration —
being appropriated, adapted, and accentuated. The
bontebok stands about 40 inches at the shoulder
and tapes about 6 feet in extreme length ; the horns
are black instead of greenish. Smarter than the
blesbok, the bontebok has the silvery blaze down
the face continuous throughout, instead of being
interrupted about the level of the horn bases by a
brown hiatus ; the belly, the disc above the tail, and
the upper part of the tail itself are pure snowy -white ;
the same remark applies to the legs, both inside and
cut. The rich purple brown of the neck, the lilac of
the back, and the posterior direction of the crest on
the tail are common to both species. In the bontebok
at the Natural History Museum there is a much
richer, darker purple gloss on the body, below the
lilac "saddle," than in the blesbok exhibited in the
same case. The record bontebok horns tape
i6% inches.

Unlike the blesbok, the bontebok has always
been a rare animal ; it was already scarce when first
described by Pallas in 1766. The old colonists
made no distinction between the two species. The

THE BLESBOK ANTELOPE 163

vague methods of labelling museum specimens
formerly in vogue — "Caffraria," or even " South
Africa," being frequently considered quite sufficient —
did not help in localising the bontebok. Sparrman,
however, recorded it from the Bot River in Caledon
(1785) ; Sir John Barrow noted its reduced numbers
in 1 80 1 ; Smuts about 1832 recorded it from the
Breede River in S wellendam.1 So rare was the species
becoming that, by 1836, a fine of 500 rix dollars
(£$7 ios.) was imposed by the Government on
any person shooting one without permission. Sir
Cornwallis Harris, having obtained a permit to shoot
some four bontebok, noted about three hundred
individuals on the estate of Field Commandant
Laurens at that time. " Still found in Zoetendals
Vley," he writes in his book on South Africa; and,
indeed, this locality near Cape Agulhas appears to
be the only district in which these scarce antelopes
now occur. That any remain at all, after so many
years, is due to the farsighted policy of certain
Dutch gentlemen. In 1864, Mr. Alexander van
Byl enclosed his immense farm of 6,000 acres
at Nachtwacht, and drove nearly all the surviving
bontebok — some thirty head — into the enclosure,

1. Harris was the first to distinguish between bontebok and blesbok,
though Hamilton Smith observed in 1826, regarding the white-faced
antelope, " there is a variety which we have seen brought from the
Boochwaana country, in which the white colour on the buttocks is not
observable, but the white legs remain equally pure as in the others."
The "white-faced antelope " would thus seem to be the bontebok, at that
time confused with the true cdbifrons or blesbok; the variety "from the
Boochwana country " being the blesbok of Bechuanaland.

164 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

thus preserving them from the extermination which
had already long overtaken the blaauwbok of
the same district. Dr. Albertyn also enclosed
between twenty and thirty buck on his own farm,
Zeekoe Vley ; as late as 1895 some wild individuals
were said to linger outside the enclosures near
Breasdorp, and also near Swellendam. The bonte-
bok is now even rarer than the blesbok ; it is said
that only about two hundred of the former are left,
though happily this shows considerable increase since
the enclosure was effected.

The following specimens have been brought to
Europe :—

1. Bontebok preserved in the museum of Sir
Ashton Lever (dispersed in 1806) ; this specimen,
according to Pennant, stood " three feet to the top
of the shoulders," and had horns 16 inches long.

2. Stuffed male specimen in the National Collec-
tion, received in 1839 from Dr. Smuts.

3. Stuffed female, from Dr. Smuts (Dr. Gray's
handlist of mammalia in the British Museum).

4. Young animal, stuffed, face brown, from
M. Verreaux (Dr. Gray).

5. Another young animal, stuffed, face brown
(Dr. Gray).

6. 7. Mounted pair from Nachtwacht Farm, in
National Collection.

8. 9. Pair of adult bontebok, purchased at the
Knowsley sale in 1851 by Mr. D. W. Mitchell for
the Zoological Gardens.

THE BLESBOK ANTELOPE. 165

10, ii. Pair bred at Knowsley, sold to Prince
Demidoff.

12. Bontebok living in the Antwerp collection in
1869.

13, 14. Two females, purchased by the Zoological
Society for ^50 in August, 1871.

15, 1 6. Stuffed pair in the Artis Museum,
Amsterdam.

17. Specimen in the Vienna Museum.

1 8-2 1. Four examples — or portions thereof — in
the Senckenberg Museum at Frankfort A/M, obtained
by Baron von Ludwig in 1838.

22. Calvaria and horns from Caffraria, in Royal
College of Surgeons' Museum (Hunterian series).1 ,

Thus is written the history of the bontebok ; let
us now return to the blesbok, as it lived in the good
days gone for ever.

A ceaseless succession of undulating greensward,
bright with flowers in great patches of colour. The
sun rains down heat from a firmament of cloudless
blue ; dim in the distance the quivering horizon
swims in hazy perspective. Not a hill nor a tree —
nor even a bush — is in sight ; the only landscape, the
bare rolling veldt. Yet, though almost featureless,
the scene is enlivened by a vast herd of blesbok,
intermixed with springbok and a few black wilde-
beest ; the brilliant coats of the antelopes are set

1. Perhaps the somewhat doubtful specimen exhibited at Exeter
'Change should be included in this list.

1 66 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

off to perfection by the green grass and golden
sunshine. Thousands of elegant necks and snowy
muzzles are outstretched in concert; a glorious
purple nuance plays over the glossy hides of the
blesbok, and the lilac sheen glazes their backs like
a saddle of thinnest gossamer. A few brown-coated
youngsters accompany their mothers ; here and there
springbok jump and caper, raising the scut on their
backs like the fantail of a pigeon. A long line of
black wildebeest trek serpentine across the veldt,
their heavy heads and flowing tails giving them a
grotesque resemblance to a troop of lions ; in the
distance a larger herd is grazing, the old bulls on
sentry duty standing apart from the main body, and
uttering from time to time a deep croak. Suddenly
a loud snort sounds from one of the old fellows ;
something has alarmed him, and instantly the
message is communicated to the entire company.
A hunter's waggon appears far away, its white tilt
conspicuous in the blinding sunshine. The wildebeest
rush off capering, pull up within two hundred yards,
and turn again to stare. Growing restless, the
blesbok run together into little groups ; then as by
one impulse the entire company — springbok, blesbok,
wildebeest — are in full flight. The grass swishes as
the dense-packed masses tear through it ; the earth
re-echoes with the tremendous hammering of
thousands of hoofs ; with muzzles to ground and
tails on high the blesbok thunder past, a vast cloud

THE BLESBOK ANTELOPE l6/

of purple, brown, and white, the dust rising in a
thick fog from under their twinkling feet. Hundreds
and hundreds of antelopes scour against the wind in
endless succession ; the atmosphere is thickened
with dust-fog and perfumed with warm bovine scent.
Brilliant sky, brilliant earth, brilliant blesbok — we
close our eyes, but the vision of those bright-coated
antelopes is still before us.

THE BABIRUSA HOG.

" There are Hogs also with homes and parats which prattle
much."

Purchas on the babirusa^ A.D. 1693.

Europe in prehistoric times. The rays of a
Miocene sun beat heavily upon the luxuriant
landscape ; a vast lake, backed by a mighty forest,
lies shining like a mirror in the riotous sunlight. A
•few guano-covered rocks project from the surface of
the water ; on every rock sits a cormorant, preening
its feathers, while close inshore a vast ribbon of
thousands of flamingoes diligently patrol the shallows.
Half a dozen crocodiles doze on an adjacent sand
bank, their scaly faces set in an immovable smile.
Brilliant kingfishers sit silent among the intense
green of the reed beds, jewels of purest sapphire
against a background of deepest emerald. White
storks soar in drifting spirals high in the azure
firmament ; dainty plover-like birds, graceful as the
jacanas of recent Africa, run over the surface of the
water vegetation ; giant butterflies float in the hot
sunshine on wings of crimson and cobalt. Faint in
the sultry afternoon silence sounds the dull croaking
of innumerable frogs.

The stately forest half encircling the lake
is composed of a mixed temperate and tropical

THE BABIRUSA HOG 169

flora; oaks and palms, birches and bamboos, elms
and laurels all occur in more or less abundance.
Here a clump of tall F label laria raise their shapely
crowns to the torrid sky ; there a tangle of Cucumites
shows dull green in the cathedral twilight. Deeper in
the forest the trees interlace at the top ; the air is
•close and steamy, reeking with excess of carbonic
acid; while lower forms of plant life — mosses, lichens,
creepers — flourish in sweating luxuriance. The thick
undergrowth swarms with curtseying leeches; the
boles of dead trees harbour great scorpions in their
rotting wood. The canopy, 200 feet overhead,
grows denser, the light fainter ; drops of moisture
glisten on every twig, and the ground underfoot is
black with rotted leaves. Through the forest flows
a small stream, green with conferva and afire with
dragon flies.

The dark wall of foliage sways to and fro, as if
moved by a mighty wind ; silently there appear in
the forest depths a number of dusky forms, trunked
and tusked like elephants, silent, strong, and
sagacious — a troop of mastodon. As they pass
along the opposite bank they show four tusks
instead of two, trunks shorter than an elephant's,
longer ears and legs; elephants in the making, rough
•creatures half way between the little meritherium of
Eocene Egypt and the colossus of the Zoo. A
troop of monkeys — (dryopithecus) — disturbed by the
mastodon are seen in the trees, shouting in noisy

NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

discord as they swing themselves from bough to bough
with their powerful hands. Hardly have they passed
than the water of the stream is seen in commotion,
and three or four huge slate-coloured beasts appear
floating on the surface, like so many submarines.
About eighteen feet long and stoutly built, they some-
what recall a dugong or manatee ; but as they roll and
splash lazily in the tepid water they are seen to
carry short trunks, while powerful tusks sprout from
the lower jaw. These are deinotheria ; less terrible
beasts than would have been supposed, they lead a
peaceful existence in the depths of the forest, playing
and wallowing in the woodland marshes, and tearing
up supplies of vegetable food with their ivory
mattocks.

Abrupt indeed is the transition from Miocene
times to the bustling world of to-day, with its
wireless telegraphy and motor cars. Yet here and
there, even in this unromantic age, linger traces
of the mighty forests and dreamland animals of
the Tertiary Period. Thus the island of Celebes,
in the East Indies, is thought to be the remnant of
an ancient continent ; as late as 1894 much of it was
still unknown, and it yet harbours that curious living
fossil, that survivor of Miocene times — the babirusa
hog.

The babirusa (Babirusa alfurus) stands about 27^
inches at the shoulder, and measures about 47 inches
from the tip of the snout to the root of the twelve-inch

THE BABIRUSA HOG 1 71

tail. The general outlines resemble those of a pig,
save that the body is compressed laterally, and that it
stands much higher on the legs than usually
misrepresented in books. The snout terminates
in a disc; the eyes and ears are small;1 the
short tail bears a few stiff bristles at the tip. The
skin is wrinkled tranversely like a maggot's ; it is
nearly naked, and dotted all over with granulations,
which become coarser about the limbs and feet and
on the front of the head, face, and lower jaw. The
colour of the hide is ashy grey, with blackish ears ;
a scanty covering of fine yellowish down may occur
along the back in adult animals. In advanced
age the hide on the back and sides becomes all
rough, chipped, and scaly like the bark of a tree, and
the down disappears. In younger adults such down
is represented by black bristles, stubby like an
unshaven chin, and plentifully besprinkled over the
muzzle and median area of the face, on the vertex,
occiput, and nape, and on the withers, back, loins,
and tail.

The most remarkable feature of the babirusa,
however, is its tusks. Most developed in the male,
these weapons are arranged in two pairs ; they are
flattened laterally, are quite devoid of enamel, and
are armed with sharp cutting edges. The upper
pair (canines) rise close together near the middle

1. The iris is greyish white, giving the animal a peculiar appearance,
as if a " doll's eye " had been inserted into the orbit. The actual tint is
an exceedingly pale green-grey, faintly tinged with rusty brown.

NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

line of the face ; pass though the cheek, and sweep
upwards and then backwards in a bold curve till
they touch the forehead.1 The upper canines of the
babirusa never enter the mouth ; that they should
thus penetrate the muscle and skin of the face
without causing serious inflammatory symptoms
seems little short of marvellous. The lower tusks
spring from the jaw in the usual way, and project
above the lower lip as sharp backwardly-curved
defences. Average length of upper tusk 14^ inches ;
maximum recorded length 17 inches over the curve.
The sows have small tusks situated in the lower
jaw only.

The student will find an interesting collection of
babirusa skulls in the museum of the Royal College
of Surgeons, many of them dating from the time of
John Hunter, the founder of the collection. No. 1 825
(Hunterian) is a splendid specimen ; the upper
canines boldly cross each other above the head ; the
lower ones sweep round like miniature ivory
scimitars.2 A skull presented in 1818 by Daniel
Moore has the upper canines so curved as to touch
the frontal bones, which exhibit a depressed surface,
perhaps actually due to pressure-absorption ; another

1. A babirusa living in the London collection many years ago (1886 ?)
carried such fine tusks that the late Mr. A. D. Bartlett sawed off the
tips and inserted cork guards between the sawn ends and the face, lest
the tusks should actually re-enter the skin ! The animal, however, soon
dislodged the corks.

2. A specimen in the Natural History Museum has the upper tusks
widely divergent — the opposite of No. 1825.

THE BABIRUSA HOG 173

specimen, presented in 1816 by Dr. Babington, has
the upper tusks, though small, so much curved as to
cause pressure-indentation of the skull at the fronto-
nasal suture. Finally, a cranium in this series is
remarkable in possessing an additional premolar
tooth on each side.

The object of the curious curved defences of the
male babirusa has long puzzled naturalists, and is
still unknown. It has been suggested that their
curvature is partly pathological ; that the tusks>
which formerly served some function not now
required, have become abnormally curved like the
incisor tooth of a rat or rabbit, which is no longer
ground down, its fellow in the opposite jaw having
been lost. Again it has been thought that they
protect the face of the animal against the briars of
the jungle, though this does not explain their absence
in the sows. As fighting weapons they are probably
effective enough, presenting several inches of razor-
edge to an adversary ; these wild swine are
well-armed indeed, as may be seen from a record of
injury inflicted by the much smaller weapons of the
Indian boar. On February 3, 1904, a boy ten years
old was admitted to the Purneah Charitable Hospital,.
Bengal, suffering from a serious chest wound caused
by a wild boar. The ninth and tenth ribs were
broken, a portion of engorged intestine protruded
from the chest wall, and the diaphragm was also
wounded ; happily under treatment the boy made a

174

NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

good recovery. As regards the story of the babirusa
sleeping suspended by his tusks, it seems that these
weapons are but loosely attached to the skull, as
demonstrated by actual experiment in the deadhouse
at the Zoological Gardens.

The babirusa may have been the four-horned boar
(iWer/oa/ce/ooj?) of Elian ; Pliny more definitely notices
a boar horned on the forehead, which he supposed
to inhabit India (lib. viii. c. 52); Cosmes in the sixth
century mentions it under the name of Kotpe\a</>os or
hog-deer.1 Sailors in later times trading among the
Moluccas brought over many of the curious tusked
skulls. At least one specimen appears to have been
amongst the " Rarities belonging to the Royal
Society and preserved at Gresham College "
described by Grew in 1686.

No less than ten of the College of Surgeons series
were obtained in the lifetime of John Hunter (died
1793) ; this is remarkable indeed considering the very
local range of the species and the uncertainty of
travel in those days. The first living examples seen
in Europe were a pair received in 1820 at the Jardin
des Plantes in Paris, and perhaps it was this pair
that produced a young one in the Paris collection.

It appears that as late as 1827 only the head of the
animal was known in this country. Hamilton Smith

1. Perhaps in allusion to the antler-like (?) tusks; compare the
Malay name babirusa, babi — hog, rusa — deer. Deer^o^ would have
been a much more appropriate title ; for the babirusa has been compared
to a stag in lightness, and justly so. The true cervine hog-deer has
nothing to do with the babirusa.

THE BABIRUSA HOG 175

figured the babirusa with red eyes and a brown
hide — an effort of the imagination, surely! and
amusingly depicted the tusks as curled moustache-
fashion a la militaire. The first living babirusa in
England was presented to the London Zoo
in 1839 by Captain Belcher, R.N. A comical
figure of a young babirusa has been figured in one of
the natural histories, the animal being shown reared up
over the edge of its sty, like a parson in a pulpit. In
captivity the babirusa soon becomes tame ; a pair
presented to the Zoo by the Duke of Bedford, on
July 3, 1897, lived some years in the collection, and
the female still (1907) survives. This pair were kept
entirely in an unwarmed sty, summer and winter,
though with plenty of good bedding ; thus demon-
strating that animals brought from countries under
the Equator can completely adapt themselves to
the rigours of the English climate. To the writer
they were of exceptional interest, since they were
the first mammals ever photographed by him.

Remarkable for its extremely limited distribution,
the babirusa occurs only in the East Indies, on the
little known islands of Celebes and Limbe; those on
Boru are supposed to have been introduced from
Celebes by man.1 Several other mammals occur
only on Celebes : the black "ape" for example, and
the curious anoa, half buffalo half antelope. These

1. A specimen which Forsten brought over from Boru many years ago
is preserved in alcohol in the Leyden Museum.

1^6 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

forms are quite distinct from any others found
throughout the East Indies,1 hence it has been
thought that Celebes, as already stated in this Essay,
once formed part af a Miocene continent, of which
the greater portion has disappeared. The case is
strengthened by the occurrence there of several birds,
apparently actual reman ts of a Miocene fauna ; such
as the Meropogon bee-eater, the Ceycopsis kingfisher,
two curious species of magpie, and three genera of
starling. Thus the interest already attaching to the
babirusa, with its formidable tusks and its weird
appearance, is heightened by its blue-blood ancestry-
it is truly a living fossil, a survival as strange as
would be a living mastodon or deinotherium.

The daily life of the babirusa probably differs but
little from that of its ancestors in antediluvian times.
The great forests of Celebes represent the woodlands
of Miocene days, as restored and figured by the
magic hand of Riou. Climbing strands of rattan
palm meander over the boles of forest giants, or trail
serpentwise among the thick layer of dead leaves
carpeting the ground ; Livistonia palms raise their
giant-columns mast high in Nature's hot-house. As
for the fauna, the curious black "ape," half monkey,
half baboon, inhabits the tree-tops ; the black anoa
feeds in the clearings, its little yellow calf at heel.
Tiny fruit-doves, grey-headed and green-backed,

1. An attempt has been made to show that the Bos mindorensis—a,
species of dwarf buffalo — is allied to the anoa.

THE BABIRUSA HOG 177

coo and play in the thickets ; Nicobar' ground-
pigeons, hackled like game fowl, patrol the clearings
in busy hungry flocks. Rollers and orioles, lorikeets
and kingfishers inhabit the jungle ; enormous horn-
bills sit in the tops of the trees, their quaint beaks of a
gaudy orange colour suggesting the wondrous fauna of
a pantomime. The babirusa wallows in the muddy
clearings in the forest ; it swims well, and is said to
be able to dive on occasion. The young are born in
November, December and January, their nursery
consisting of a small underground hole made by the
sow, and lined with leaves ; they can move about on
the second day. Many years ago a male babirusa
was born in the London Zoological Gardens ; it was
of a grey colour all over like its parents, was tinged
with pink under the belly, and lived until the tusks
began to appear.

THE SUMATRAN RHINOCEROS.

" Went with Sir William Godolphin to see the rhinoceros
or unicorn, being the first, I suppose, that was ever brought
to England. She belonged to some East India merchants,
and was sold (as I remember) for above ^"2,000."

John Evelyn, A.D. 1684.

The investigation of a jungle fauna, like that of
the deep sea, presents specal difficulties, for Nature
yields up her secrets with but niggard hand. The
Malayan forest animals are perhaps as little known
as any, although specimens of them, both great and
small, won at great expenditure of time and money
and health, now enrich our museums. Cynogale
and hemigale, babirusa and linsang, tarsier and tapir
are cases in point ; so also are the Javan and
Sumatran rhinoceroses of South- Eastern Asia.

The Sumatran rhinoceros {Rhinoceros sumatrensis]
— budak tapa (or recluse) of the Malays — kyan of the
Burmese — stands about 4^ feet at the shoulder and
tapes about 8 feet from the tip of the snout to the
root of the tail, being the smallest of living rhino-
ceroses. The head is elongated, with a pointed upper
lip; the eyes are small, and the ears of moderate size.
This animal carries two horns, the front one being
occasionally strongly curved ; the hinder horn is
a mere fragment. Rough and granulated, the skin of

THE SUMATRAN RHINOCEROS 179

the Sumatran rhinoceros exhibits a well-marked fold
behind the shoulder ; the hide in the creases round
the limbs is much softer than elsewhere, resembling
the joints in mediaeval armour. The tail is short
and nearly naked, a few hairs only persisting near
the tip. General body colour earthy brown ; the
hide is besprinkled with quite a number of brown or
black bristles, remnant of an ancestral coat of fur.
Maximum recorded length of anterior horn 32 inches
over the curve. Young animals are hornless.

This little rhinoceros is remarkable for the amount
of hair carried even by the typical race ; but
the "hairy-eared" variety — the so-called Rhinoceros
lasiotis — has the ear conches quite heavily fringed,
while the body in the lower half is clad in long fine
blackish-brown hair showing a purplish cast, and
from its delicate appearance recalling the downy coat
of a humble bee or a burying beetle ! Along the
back, the hair of R. Lasiotis is very scanty and of
a pale whitish-straw colour. A rhinoceros hybrid
(R. sumatrensis, male x R. lasiotis, female) born at
the Calcutta Zoological Gardens many years ago
was covered all over with soft woolly hair ; so that one
may, on evolutional grounds, assume that formerly
rhinoceroses were coated like other mammals, and
have lost their coat on assuming more or less aquatic
habits. A similar denudation has taken place amongst
elephants ; but there is in the National Collec-
tion a young calf of the Indian species thickly

l8o NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

covered with hair, and a well-haired example of the
African elephant is preserved in the Paris Museum.1

Although first described in 1817 by Cuvier in his
" Regne Animal," the Sumatran rhinoceros had been
imperfectly known to Europeans long before that
date ; it was, indeed, the Sumatran unicorn of Marco
Polo. Bell, a surgeon to the East India Company
at Bencoolen, described and figured the "double-
horned rhinoceros of Sumatra" in the "Philosophical
Transactions" in 1793 ; while Mr. Miller, a friend of
Thomas Pennant, had met with it apparently earlier
than Bell. It is significant of the shy habits of this
"rhinoceros that Miller only saw two specimens during
a long residence in the island ; one of these, however,
was within a distance of twenty yards. The first
museum specimen seems to have been a skull of a
young rhinoceros sent to England by Mr. Bell not
later than 1793, and said (though this is doubtful) to
be the same as that figured in the " Philosophical
Transactions;" Sir Stamford Raffles afterwards
presented to the museum of the Royal College of
Surgeons the skeletons of three individuals.

The first living specimen at the Zoological Gardens
was not received till August 2nd, 1872, when an
example which had been taken in the Sunghi-njong
district of Malacca was deposited in the collection by
Mr. Jamrach, The beast was afterwards purchased

1. Renshaw: "On the young of the African elephant:" Proceedings
of the Zoological Society, 1904.

THE SUMATRAN RHINOCEROS 1-8 1

by the Society for £600. An old female which had
shed her lower incisor teeth, she proved a disastrous
speculation, dying six weeks afterwards ; some
recoupment was however effected by selling the skin
and skull to the British Museum.1 On December
7th, 1872, another female arrived in London, and
gave birth to a calf while still on ship-board at the
Victoria Docks. At a few hours old the enterprising
youngster was found walking about the deck in
spite of the cold and rain ; the exposure almost
paralysed its limbs, though use was restored by
rubbing it all over and placing it in warm blankets.
Indeed, by the next day the little rhinoceros was so
vigorous that its attendants had quite enough to do
to prevent it from running all over the room in
which it had been temporarily placed. The animal
was exceedingly quaint in appearance, having a long-
almost donkey-like head, and long legs, and an ample
coat of crisp black hair. The anterior horn was ^
inch long, but the posterior one was represented only
by a smooth spot ; height at shoulder 2 feet, length
3 feet. This rhinoceros was very thin and bony,
and soon died ; the mother and the carcase of the
young one were shipped to America. In July,
1875, Mr. Jamrach deposited another female at the
Zoo, which he afterwards sold to the Society for £600.
Distributed thorughout Burmah, the Malay Penin-

1. Although as a rule long-lived animals, rhinoceroses are liable to
die after a very short illness ; thus a Javan rhinoceros at Calcutta died of
pneumonia in twenty-four hours.

1 82 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

sula, and Siam to Sumatra and Borneo, the present
species is a dweller in dense forest, hiding hermit-like
in the depths of the hill jungles, and climbing the
mountains as far as 4,000 feet. Deep dark virgin
forest, here and there bright with scarlet fruit ;
tangles of rattan palm and belts of banana trees ;
glowing masses of flowering ixoras and fields of
mountain bracken — these adorn the home of the
Sumatran rhinoceros. Like the hippopotamus, the
rhinoceros constantly uses the same track ; it sleeps
every day in the same bedroom or "rhinoceros house,"
a sheltered lair in the depth of the thicket.

The Sumatran rhinoceros is fond of bathing, and
wallows like a pig ; sometimes it immerses the
whole body in the mud, so that only a part of the
head is visible.1 Most active early in the morning
and in the evening, it retires in the middle of the
day- for a prolonged siesta. Leaves of the jack
fruit are a favourite food of the Asiatic rhinoceroses,
and they also feed freely on those of the yalher fig
(Ficus glomeratus) ; they ravage crops which may
be growing in the neighbourhood, the Javan species
(R. Sondaicus} attacking coffee and pepper plantations.
In spite of their size and strength these animals are
not very brave, and a single wild dog has been
known to put one to flight.

1. A two-horned rhinoceros is said to have been seen swimming in the
sea in the Mergui Archipelago; similarly it is said that Flacourt, the
discoverer of the African black rhinoceros, first saw one in the "Bay of
Saldaghne " near the Cape.

THE SUMATRAN RHINOCEROS l8j

The name " Banda Api" (or fire rhinoceros) applied
to the Sumatran animal has been held to indicate its
red appearance after rolling in the mud ; but another
and much more interesting explanation may be the
true one. It is said that fire has a peculiar attraction
for these animals, which will approach one lighted
in the jungle and even endeavour to extinguish the
blaze — curious enough if true, and quite inexplicable.
Similar tales have been recounted of the African
species ; thus one of the older writers relates how
a black rhinoceros .once rushed into a party of
soldiers bivouacked on the banks of a river, injuring
them and putting out the fire ; and the Hon. W. H.
Drummond has recorded how in Zululand a black
rhinoceros once made an unprovoked attack on his
camp fire, scattering it in all directions and stamping
it out with its feet as it squealed with rage. The
white species has been known to approach within
twenty yards of a camp fire, only retreating when a
brand hurled at it struck its snout.

The Sumatran rhinoceros is extensively taken in
pitfalls, the horns being bartered to the Chinese, who
use them as medicine ; in Canton the druggists
exhibit them for sale amongst other strange
materia medica. For some diseases the horns are
ground into powder, for others fragments are worn
amulet-fashion about the person. Rhinoceros horns
are divided into four classes : Sumbu lilin (wax-
coloured), Sumbu api (fire-coloured), Sumbu nila

184 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

(blue), and Sumbu itam (black). These animals
defend themselves not with their horns, but with
their enormous razor -edged teeth ; an elephant's
foot bitten by one of these furies has been cut to
the bone before now.

The hairy-eared variety of the Sumatran rhino-
ceros was first described on August 16, 1872,
at the Brighton meeting of the British Association,
from an individual then living in London.1 It
differed from the typical race in the drooping plume
of hair ornamenting the ear conch, in the greater
development of the hairy covering, and in its larger
size and shorter tail. Moreover, the texture of
the hair was finer than the bristly coat of the typical
Sumatran race ; the hide was smoother and also paler.
The anterior surface of the fore and hind feet, and
also the outer aspect of the limbs, were clothed with
a considerable quantity of black hair.

This individual was secured in the following
circumstances : —

In December, 1867, some natives found a female
rhinoceros embedded in a quicksand at Chittagong,
in Eastern Bengal ; quite exhausted with struggling,
she fell an easy prey. Two stout ropes having
been attached to her neck, the unfortunate
beast was hauled out by the combined efforts of
about two hundred men ; kept taut between the

1. Dr. Anderson had, however, described the specimen— supposing it to
be a typical sumatrensis — early in 1872.

THE SUMATRAN RHINOCEROS 185

ropes, she was then tethered to a tree. The natives
next applied for assistance to the magistrate at
Chittagong ; Captain Hood and Mr. H. W. Wickes
came to the rescue with eight elephants, after a
tough march of sixteen hours. Terrified at the
sight of the rhinoceros, all the elephants bolted
forthwith ; but, having been rounded up again, a
leg of the captive was made fast to an elephant.
At this critical moment, the rhinoceros unluckily
gave a roar, upon which the chicken-hearted
elephant again made off; had not the rope slipped
the limb would probably have been torn out of its
socket. Finally, the rhinoceros, roped securely
amongst the elephants, was marched off towards
Chittagong. She had sometimes half a mile of
people trailing after her, the journey being almost a
royal progress ; thousands of natives thronged the
route, even breaking down the bamboo bridges
with their numbers. The rhinoceros had to cross
two rivers ; but nevertheless safely arrived at
Chittagong, where she was freed from the ropes and
turned into a stockade. A bath and a covered shed
were provided, and the animal soon became very
tame, feeding from the hand. In November, 1871,
" Begum " was purchased by Mr. W. Jamrach, and
was sold by him to the Zoological Society for
,£1,250, arriving in England on Febuary 15, 1871.
Safely lodged in the elephant house in Regent's
Park, the new animal was presently seen to be quite

1 86 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

different from and much larger than the typical
Sumatran specimen obtained later in the year ; and,
although anatomical points could not be settled till
after death, the animal was prized as a great
rarity, being the only hairy-eared rhinoceros
known.1

In 1882 Begum Latifa Khatum presented to the
Calcutta Zoological Gardens the second known
specimen of the hairy-eared rhinoceros. Some
peasants working in paddy fields near Chittagong
had noticed an unknown animal come out of the
jungle into the fields, and mentioned it to a shikaree,
who applied to the Begum for assistance to capture
the animal. A crowd armed with sticks then
surrounded the hill to which the beast had retired,
and the shikaree having climbed a tree, made out
that the animal was a rhinoceros. Noosed ropes were
then tied to the branches of the trees, so that
in a short time the animal became entangled.
The rhinoceros having torn the ropes from their
fastenings, rushed off with them trailing after
it ; but fell into a muddy hollow, and was
promptly secured and dragged into a neighbouring
village. The animal soon became tame, and the
children of the Zenana used to ride on its back.
This individual was a female ; her consort was seen

1. About this time the Hamburg Zoological Society acquired a small
rhinoceros about two years old, which may have belonged to the hairy-
eared variety. This individual was as big as a small horse, and very
tame ; it is said that it would allow one to place one's hand in its mouth
and take it out again.

THE SUMATRAN RHINOCEROS 187

about three days after the capture, but unfortunately
an attempt to take him was unsuccessful. •

A hybrid between the hairy-eared form and the
typical Sumatran race was afterwards bred in the
Calcutta collection. The little animal was born
early in the morning of January 30, 1889, and at
first resembled a lump of animated clay. It got up
after an hour and a half, and made a plucky attempt
to walk, though it could not go three yards without
stumbling. At one o'clock the mother was given
some oatmeal gruel, and the infant a quart of cow's
milk ; at six o'clock in the evening, and again at ten
o'clock the calf received some more cow's milk.
During the night the mother began to suckle it, so
that it became active and playful. The skin of this
interesting little animal was soft pinky brown
(contrasting with the dusky grey of the young
pure-bred sumatrensis) and became darker with age;
its body was covered all over with soft woolly hair.

The Sumatran and hairy-eared rhinoceroses at
Calcutta were found to be much fonder of water
than the Indian and Javan specimens in the same
collection. The former liked to lie in muddy water,
and were constantly digging new holes or under-
mining the banks of their tank ; the anterior horn
was used as a pickaxe to detach the earth, which
was then scraped backwards with the forefeet and
beaten down into soft ooze. Two Sumatran
rhinoceroses in the Gardens fought so continually

1 88 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

that they had to be separated. In captivity this
species is liable to tuberculosis of the lungs and
liver.

On April 27, 1886, a hairy-eared rhinoceros was
received in exchange at the London Zoological
Gardens ; the new animal had a much better front
horn than the type specimen. The two lived
together for many years, and the writer repeatedly
examined and photographed them. On August 31,
1900, the type specimen died ; the following account
of the survivor is based on notes made by the
writer on May 1 1, 1906 :

Day dull ; animal moving slowly about paddock,
heavy head carried at an angle of 45°, and tail
swinging loosely about, as if it had been tacked
on to the body. The animal kept wagging each ear
alternately, the extrinsic auricular muscles acting
very freely in bringing the ear to and from the
middle line of the head ; sometimes both ears were
simultaneously approximated to the middle line.
The pencilled tufts of hair were directed backwards,
and gave quite a graceful finish to the ear. The
upper part of the body was roughly tessellated;
three well-defined folds of skin were seen on the
buttock as the animal walked, and the tail was
deeply incised with several transverse furrows
recalling the segmentation of a worm. The
footsteps of this heavy animal were almost
noiseless ; when standing still the hind legs were so

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THE SUMATRAN RHINOCEROS 189

much bent that a vertical line dropped from the
hock to the ground would not touch the foot, or any
part of the limb below the hock.

The skull and head skin of the original type
specimen of the hairy-eared rhinoceros are now in
the National Collection; the animal lived over
thirty years in captivity, and was so much diseased
that the parts above mentioned were all that was
worth keeping. It was found that this race was by
no means so distinct from the normal Sumatran
rhinoceros as had been supposed ; the once con-
spicuous ear tufts had apparently become worn with
age, and were not noticeably longer than in old
sumatrensis; the colour differences had also vanished,
and its larger size alone gave the hairy-eared phase
a doubtful distinction from the typical race. The
anterior horn was much abraded, and the posterior one
chipped ; the former differed strikingly from the well-
developed weapon carried by the survivor still in the
Zoological Gardens. For the present, the hairy-eared
rhinoceros ranks as a large northern sub-species of
the Sumatran animal ; and with this remark is now
dismissed.

THE EUROPEAN BEAVER.

" Of all the rivers of Wales, this alone possesses beavers.''
Giraldus Camlrrensis on the River Teivi, A.D. 1188.

Many of the most useful tools manufactured by
man have long ago been anticipated in the animal
kingdom. The spade-like hand of the moles and
mole-rats; the teeth of the kangaroos, close-cropping
the grass with scissor action ; and the rake-like claws
of the antbear, are typical examples. The attenuated
finger of the aye aye lemur, used forceps-like to
extract grubs from tree - trunks, may also be
mentioned here ; as also the rough tongue of the lion,
employed in rasping meat from bones ; and the
conical snout of the armadillo, used as a drill in
boring for worms. Before the English file was
introduced amongst the Indians, these ingenious
people used to cut bone with the chisel-like tooth of
a beaver fixed in a handle ; thus, in the swarming
beaver population, they had a natural instrument
store, a backwoods repository always available.
Once the beaver was as abundant in Europe as in
America ; and the European form will be dealt with
in this Essay.

The largest rodent of the Old World, the
European beaver (Castor fiber] measures about 30
inches in length (head and body) with a ten-inch tail.
The head is large and rounded ; the ears are small

THE EUROPEAN BEAVER

and scaly ; and the legs are short. The hind toes are
webbed like a duck's ; the tail is of moderate length,
flattened like a trowel, and covered with scales. The
fur is thick and soft, and of a reddish or greyish
brown hue.1 Anatomically, the European beaver
is distinguished from the American species (Castor
canadensis) by the narrowness of the anterior
portion of the skull and the backward prolongation of
the nasal bones ; the two forms are, however, very
closely allied, and many naturalists consider the
Transatlantic form to be merely a well-marked
variety of the beaver of Europe.

To-day, the European species is, alas ! a vanishing
animal tending to extinction. Formerly it inhabited
the British Isles, France, Holland, Scandinavia,
Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Turkey, and Russia;
but in England, at least, it seems to have been
very rare even as early as the ninth century.
According to Pennant, the pass of Nant Fran^on
and a locality on the River Conway, a few miles
above Llanwrst, were probably former haunts of
these animals in Wales; while the names of Beverley,
Beverstone, Beaveredge, and Beaverbourne indicate
English localities where they once occurred.2 Sir
Richard Owen has noted the discovery of a beaver
skeleton in the bed of the Old West Water, a

1. The museum of Sir Ashton Lever contained white, cream-coloured,
or spotted beavers.

2. Beaverbourne is the name of a small brook discharging into the
Severn about a mile north of Worcester, near Beaver Island ; higher up
the Severn is the flat green island of Bevereye.

192 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

choked-up channel in the Fens ; while discoloured
bones and teeth have frequently been found in the
superficial deposits of Lincolnshire and Cambridge-
shire. The date of the extermination of the beaver
in England will probably never be known ; the
animal was, however, recorded from South Wales
(Cardiganshire) as late as 1188, and from Scotland
in 1150.

On the continent of Europe the present species
has been known from very early times, Herodotus
states that it inhabited a large lake in the country of
the Budini, a Scythian tribe who lived on the Upper
Don ; Aristotle and Pliny both notice the beaver.
In Latium, the River Fibrenus was so named from
the beavers (fiber) which frequented it; and the map
of Europe is dotted over with names bearing similar
significance. Biberach or Biberbach in Swabia •
Biberha, Biber, Bebra, Beberbeke and Bever in
Germany; Bober in Silesia and Lithuania; and Bievre
in France are cases in point. People were even
named after the animal ; witness the surnames of
BobrofT in Russia, Bobrowski in Poland, Bieber in
Germany, De Bievra in France, Beever and Beevor
in England. Probably no wild animal was so widely
diffused or so well known in the old days as this
valuable and interesting creature ; Napoleon himself
did not mark the map of Europe as did this timid
and obscure rodent.

The usefulness of the European beaver proved its

THE EUROPEAN BEAVER 193

undoing ; it was diligently pursued for long centuries
on account of its many virtues. To begin with,
the thick soft felt was employed as early as the day
of Herodotus as a trimming for cloaks ; Howell the
Good in the ninth century fixed the price of a Welsh
beaver skin at the then considerable sum of a
hundred and twenty pence. Adam of Bremen in the
eleventh century and Olaus Magnus in the sixteenth
record that the pelts were much prized ; Belon
(assassinated 1564) notes that the French of his day
employed beaver cloaks and gloves in inclement
weather. Then again, the fur was employed in
making hats even before the Norman Conquest ;
Chaucer's merchant, "on his head a Flaundrish
beaver hat," appears in the Canterbury tales. In
the reign of Charles I. beaver hats were first
manufactured in England, previous to which time
they had been " fetched from beyonde the seas."
In 1638 the Government limited hatters to two
materials only, beaver fur and wool ; the hats thus
made were called " castors/' and were in high
estimation.

Furs intended for felting are treated with nitrate
of mercury after the long coarse hairs have been
removed, and the fur is then clipped from the skin.
In 1858 a new machine was introduced by which
the fur was shorn off in an improved method. The
white wool from the underparts of the animal appears
about this date to have found a ready market in

194 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

France ; the better-class fur obtained by the new
process was exported to various parts of Europe and
the East. The pelt of the coypu rat having come into
fashion about this date for second-rate hats, fewer
beavers were required than formerly, and as a
consequence their numbers, which had become
markedly thinned, began to increase ; these remarks
apply to the Canadian species. The finer quality
of beaver fur was formerly known as "flix," but
silk has long ago superseded the art of felting,
and the hideous chimney-pot hat of the City man
shines with a gloss of size and shellac, bestowed by
a revolving machine.

Considerable faith was formerly placed in the
beaver as a "complete armoury of physic." The
medical practitioner can well understand that beaver
oil may have benefited rheumatism, though more
than doubting its efficacy in apoplexy, convulsions,
and asthma ; but beaver blood for epilepsy, beaver
gall for eye affections, and beaver teeth (hung round
the neck) for delay in teething seem strange-
remedies indeed. Like the more familiar cobweb,
beaver fur was long used to stop, bleeding and no
doubt acted mechanically ; beaver-skin slippers,
stockings, and gloves for gouty patients anticipated
the chamois leather used to-day for swollen
joints.1 Castoreum was an orange-coloured secretion

1. The Rev. Edward Tppsell, in 1658, recommended "for giving great
ease unto the gowt the skinnes of beavers burned with drie oynions.

THE EUROPEAN BEAVER 195

supposed when rubbed on the hand to induce sleep ;
to benefit epilepsy and sciatica, dyspepsia and
paralysis, earache and toothache. As late as 1866
a druggist bought the castor pouch of a beaver
taken in Transylvania for ^36 ! Castoreum was
then selling in Vienna at is. 6d. per grain, so that
the proceeds of the transaction would amount to
^261. Modern research has shown that castoreum
really has some therapeutic action, being moderately
stimulating and antispasmodic. It is occasionally
used in hysteria, either as a powder or made up into a
tincture with rectified spirit.

The flesh of the beaver was formerly eaten, the
beast on fast days being reckoned a canonical "fish."
In Holland the paws and tail only were used; but
the worthy monks of Chartreux not only accounted
the whole animal as maigre, but made the flesh into
sausages, which they sold in considerable quantities!
Albertus Magnus states that the whole flesh, save
the tail, was abominable ; but Gesner describes a
Swiss method of rendering the animal savoury, and
states that the choicer portions were sweet and
tender. The Lorrainers of the sixteenth century
ate beaver tail in Lent ; Belon states that
this delicacy, which often weighed four pounds,
resembled in flavour a well-dressed eel. The flesh
of the American animal, wastefully cooked Indian
fashion by roasting in the skin and thus singeing off
all the valuable fur, is said to resemble pork ; the

196 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

lean being dark-coloured, and the fat oily and
nauseating. Captain Cartwright has, however,
termed the beaver " the most delicious eating of any
animal in the known world," so that there is no
accounting for tastes !

The hearty appreciation of the European beaver
resulting in continual persecution, has rendered this
once wide-spread animal a mere shadow in point of
numbers ; it is already practically extinct, lingering
as a wild animal in the Rhone Valley and (under
protection) on the lower Danube and in Norway.1
Formerly large colonies existed on the Moselle, the
Maas, and the Lippe rivers; in the Elbe basin ; on
the Upper Danube and its tributary the Amper ;
and in Livonia. The last Dutch beaver was killed
in 1825; the last Laplander about 1830; the last
Livonian in 1841 ; in fact the history of this
unfortunate species seems to be nothing else but a
record of slaughter, and hardly anything has been
observed of its habits. On the other hand, full
accounts of the life of the American species are
accessible ; its hut-building and dyke-making ; its
food — tree bark and water lilies ; its gregarious
disposition, and nocturnal habits. So little were the
habits of the European species known that Buffon
and Cuvier even suggested that it never constructed
huts ; nor would it seem wonderful that so

1. A Norwegian specimen from Arendal, presented by Professor
Collett in 1897, is in the National Collection.

THE EUROPEAN BEAVER 1 97

harrassed an animal should prefer to skulk in a mere
burrow, like a rat. It is now ascertained, however,
that these animals do live in societies, build huts,
and construct dams, when they get a chance of
doing so ; Bechstein in 1801 stated that the beavers
of the Elbe built dams when the water was calm,
cutting down the willows and poplars ; the colonies
were, however, less numerous than in Canada. A
beaver hut on the Yesil was six feet high, with a
three-celled chamber above, and a four-celled
chamber below ; colonies of beavers existed on the
Ammer as late as 1837.

Perhaps the best description of a European beaver
colony is that of Meyerinck, who, in 1829, communi-
cated his account to the Transactions of the Berlin
Natural History Society. The colony had been
settled for upwards of a century on the Nuthe, a
small tributary of the Elbe. In 1822 it only
consisted of some fifteen or twenty individuals ; but
the members of this tiny republic carried out the
full programme of a much larger community. Their
burrows penetrated the bank for a distance of
thirty or forty paces, on a level with the stream,
opening under water ; there were also land
entrances to these runs. Their huts, eight or ten
feet high, were rudely constructed of branches and
tree trunks, and covered with earth ; their dyke was
eminently successful, being so well made as to raise
the level of the water a foot and more — a very

THE EUROPEAN BEAVER I 99

rat. The mother follows them when they first take
to the water, apparently as anxious as a hen that has
reared ducklings ; for she takes the youngster out of
the water and returns it to the nest. At present
(July, 1907) there are three Canadian specimens in
the collection, but only one of these belongs to the
old stock. The writer saw it out about 7.15 p.m. on
May 30, 1907 ; it swam with a good deal of its body
above the surface, and held its snout up clear of the
water. When on land, it recalled a heavy, clumsy
rat, and moved slowly, as if weak from old age ;
such might well be the case, as it had been born in
the collection as long ago as September 2nd, 1888,
being the last of the specimens mentioned by Mr.
Bartlett. It had a curious habit, when cleaning
itself, of pressing the throat with both paws, just
below the larynx.

THE CANADIAN PORCUPINE.

The class Mammalia includes many odd-looking
creatures, unconscious humourists. The staring eyes
of lemurs (especially loris lemurs) seem to indicate a
mental attitude of perpetual surprise ; the melancholy
faces of hartebeest antelopes appear to reprove all
skittishness and vivacity ; the weird anteater,
swaying its preposterous snipe-head to and fro,
seems more consonant with the adventures of Alice
in Wonderland than the world of real life. The
rodents perhaps afford relatively few forms of
amusing appearance ; but amongst these examples
may be found in the pert little prairie "dog"
and the solemn, clumsy tree-porcupine of Canada.

The Canadian porcupine (Erethizon dorsatus) is a
comical-looking beast, whose general untidy ap-
pearance suggests that he has turned out of bed in a
hurry. The total length is about 29 inches (head
and body) plus 8*/£ inches of tail. The head
is small and short, with a broad flattish nose ;
the ears and eyes are small; the incisor teeth
are large. The clumsy body is thick, broad,
and cylindrical, with a strongly-arched back ; the
upper surface is covered with a thick coat of long
coarse hair, mixed with sharp minutely-barbed spikes.
The legs are stumpy; the toes have tufts of hair
between them ; the tail is short, thick, and spiny,

THE CANADIAN PORCUPINE 2OI

like a burr. The colour of this quaint porcupine is
blackish brown above, the long hairs being tipped
with white ; the spines, which may attain a length of
four inches, are almost entirely white, the points
being generally dark brown or black. The under
surface of the animal is dark brown. The general
hue varies from light yellowish brown to dull white,
according to the paleness or intensity of colour in
the superficial furry covering. Those from Lower
Canada are black, those from the Far West light
grey ; all, however, are but varying phases of one
mutable species.

The Canadian porcupine may well be termed the
sloth of the northern hemisphere. Secure in its
bristling armoury of bayonets, it troubles little about
its enemies ; the most sluggish of all the North
American wild animals, it will spend days methodi-
cally rifling the branches of a single tree. Although
the tail is not prehensile, its long claws enable it to
climb readily ; once up, it stays up, and will not leave
the tree till it has stripped it bare ; then it descends
to attack the next one, and so on. The porcupine
feeds chiefly on the bark of the hemlock spruce, but
also on slippery elm, cotton tree, bay tree and bass-
wood ; young trees are chosen for preference, the
dainty creature only eating the soft inner fibres.
Nearly a hundred trees may be ruined in a single
winter by the depredations of one animal ; destroyed
as perfectly as if by fire, acres of saplings may be

2O2 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

seen standing gaunt and lifeless in the ravines of the
West. The slender green twigs are reached by the
animal distributing its weight over several branches,
which are then bent back so as to bring the tender
shoots through the mouth ; the Canada porcupine
also feeds on beech mast like a squirrel, and on
water lilies like a vole.

The puma, the lynx, and the fisher-marten prey
upon this porcupine — that is when they can ; for an
old porcupine is a tough customer to tackle, standing
with his vulnerable nose carefully sunk in between
his forelegs and his formidable spines abristle as he
lashes out with his armed tail. The quills are but
loosely fixed in the skin and, being barbed at the
points, are readily dragged out, fixing themselves
instead into the flesh of the assailant. Sometimes
predatory animals are taken full of porcupine quills ;
Audubon has recorded the finding in the woods of a
lynx in a dying condition from this cause. The
animal was quite helpless, its head was greatly
inflamed, and it was nearly blind, while its mouth
was full of the terrible spines of its intended victim ;
the lynx would probably in any case have expired in
a day or two. Dogs and wolves have also been
found dead from quill wounds. The fisher-marten
is said to kill the porcupine by biting it in the belly-
probably tunnelling underneath it, as it sits un-
suspecting on the thick-fallen snow.

The Canadian porcupine was the " hystrix pilosus

THE CANADIAN PORCUPINE 203

Americanus " of Catesby (1740) and the " porcupine
from Hudson's Bay" first figured by Edwards ; it is
often kept in zoological collections, where its placid
contentment constitutes it a highly respectable, if
undemonstrative exhibit. Audubon had one alive
at Charleston for six months, and found that it
became quite tame and gentle, feeding from the
hand and sitting up squirrel fashion to devour its
food. It would rub its spiny sides against his legs
like a cat — a somewhat unpleasant attention one
would think ! and look up as if begging for supplies ;
its accommodating appetite included almost any
kind of vegetable — cabbage, turnips, potatoes — in
the bill of fare. The animal bore teasing without
resentment, never raising its quills ; but on the
approach of a dog it at once bristled up, and with
lowered head and swinging tail awaited attack. On
one occasion a ferocious and troublesome mastiff
that had gained access to the garden made open-
mouthed for the porcupine, which instantly swelled
up to double its size, and dealt the dog a lateral
blow with its tail that filled the unfortunate mastiff's
mouth with quills. The dog could not close his jaws
and howling, retreated ; although the spines were at
once removed his head swelled up tremendously,
and it took him two months to recover from his
injuries. He had learnt a lesson ; and ever
afterwards gave both garden and porcupine a wide
berth. Apparently the present species cannot stand

204 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

much heat ; as spring advanced Audubon's porcupine
began to lie panting in its cage all day, lost its
appetite, finally refused food, and died.

Many years ago a Canadian porcupine that had
been kept in a garret over Peale's Museum in
Broadway, New York, gnawed a hole in the corner
of the garret. It is supposed to have climbed on to
the roof ; at any rate, it somehow managed to tumble
into Murray Street. None the worse for a fall
which would have killed most creatures outright,
this happy-go-lucky beast made for the Park, where
it presently attracted a crowd of people, none of
whom could catch it. A watchman finally secured
the animal in a basket ; and on payment of half a
dollar the porcupine was once more installed in his
old quarters, sheet tin being nailed from time to time
over those parts of the room on which he exercised
his chisel-edged teeth.

One of these animals recently studied by the
writer was a rich dark chocolate colour all over.
The eyes were small ; the muzzle continually quivered
with a flickering movement, as if sniffing ; the long
hair on the head radiated out, as if it wanted
a good brush. On the floor of its cage this
porcupine looked remarkably like a small bear—
the term "woolly bear" applied to tiger moth
caterpillars best expresses its appearance! When
perched on a branch the spines cause the animal
to resemble a flat spiky doormat ; the broad-soled

THE CANADIAN PORCUPINE 205

feet and broad body doubtless assist it to cling
closely to the trees. Stress has been laid on
the tail being non-prehensile though the owner
is aboreal ; but the writer is convinced that this flat
muscular organ is of real service in helping to steady
the animal as it climbs.

THE SPOTTED PACA.

" Mus Brasiliensis magnus, porcelli pilis et voce, Paca dictus."
John Ray on the paca, A.D. 1693.

The high level of intelligence attained by many
animals in itself constitutes a distinct field of zoological
research. The half-human reasoning of anthropoid
apes has repeatedly been the subject of comment
and observation ; the wily fox, the cunning rat,
and the versatile armadillo are further instances.
Conversely, many forms — especially amongst rodents
and marsupials — are dull even to stupidity, leading
a life of respectable blankness, an existence of
mere eating and sleeping. These exhibit a
paradox, for they are interesting precisely because
they are ^interesting ; examples may be found
in the well-known guinea pig, and in the spotted
paca.

The spotted paca (Ccelogenys paca] pag of the
Brazilians — gualilla of the Ecuador natives — dis-
tantly resembles a smartly-spotted guinea pig. It
measures about two feet in total length; the head is
broad and flattened, with a wide face. The muzzle
is long, very mobile, and provided with well-developed
whiskers ; the eyes are placed high in the head and
prominent, as if starting out of their sockets ; the
ears are small. The body is stout and, from the

THE SPOTTED PACA 2O7

shortness of the legs, almost touches the ground,
suggesting an over-stuffed sausage ; the tail is a
mere tubercle. The ground colour is blackish
umber (hence, perhaps, the term " sooty paca"
formerly applied to the animal) varying to fawn ; it
is handsomely marked with from three to five
longitudinal rows of spots, so that the general
coloration forcibly recalls that of the Indian chevro-
tain, the so-called " mouse deer " of the dealers.
The lower rows of spots often tend to form continuous
bands ; the last, on either side, frequently uniting
with the white of the belly. The type in which the
spots form continuous bands is perhaps the primitive
one ; at least, it has been suggested that spotted
animals have been derived from striped ones by
the stripes breaking up into spots, hence those pacas
which have confluent markings are less advanced,
evolutionally, than those which are spotted throughout.
The paca curiously resembles in coloration the young
tapir of the same regions.

The spotted paca was the Mus paca of Linnaeus
(Syst. Nat. 12 ed., 1766). In 1802 Dr. Shaw, in
his " General Zoology," gave a very fair figure of
the "spotted cavy." It was represented by an
incomplete skeleton and a skull in the famous
collection of John Hunter, now in the Royal College
of Surgeons' Museum. At this institution may also
be seen a very interesting exhibit, consisting of a
paca skull (presented by Mr. Charles Stokes) which

2O8 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

has been longitudinally and vertically bisected to
show its structure. The face is remarkable for the
enormous development of the zygomatic or cheek
arches, which are expanded into a bony shield
almost concealing the lower jaw. This shield is
convex externally, and beautifully sculptured on its
outer side in a delicate tracery ; the sculpturing
seems to show individual variation. The skull of
the paca is only one quarter less in width than in
length.

The death of a paca in the menagerie of the
Jardin des Plantes, about 1805, enabled Geoffrey
St. Hilaire to demonstrate the existence of extraor-
dinary cavities in the faces of these animals.
Daubenton had already noted the great size of the
cheek bones and their position, descending much
lower than usual ; while Buffon had observed a
longitudinal fold near the lower part of the upper jaw,
forming, as it were, a second mouth. St. Hilaire
showed that the fold was the opening of a fairly
large sac, passing right inside the face behind the
zygomatic arch ; it was lined by a continuation of
the skin, which was afterwards reflected outwards.
The sac was thus quite external to the mouth,
and resembled the outer pockets of a gopher rat
rather than the cheek-pouches of a monkey.
These gophers, it may be observed, have large
receptacles lined with hair and opening at the
lower edges of the cheeks, supposed to be used as

THE SPOTTED PACA 2OQ

pockets for carrying food to their winter storehouses ;
but a similar use cannot be assigned to the sacs of
the paca, as the opening of the sac is both narrow
and unyielding, while even if the aperture were
dilatable the sac itself, enclosed by firm bone, could
not be expanded to receive any cargo. However, the
animal also has true cheek pouches of considerable
size, so that it is probably a " packer" in more senses
than one.

The spotted paca is widely distributed in South
America, from Surinam to Paraguay, and also occurs
in Tobago and Trinidad in the West Indies. It
inhabits forests and damp, low lying-regions, where
it burrows to a depth of four or five feet ; there are
said to be three openings to each burrow. Strictly
nocturnal, the paca goes solitary, or at most in pairs;
it swims and dives well, and can run fast. Its thin
skin and harsh pelage render it commercially
valueless ; but in February and March the animals
become very fat, and are then taken for food, the
flesh being first scalded like a sucking pig's and then
roasted. The paca subsists on leaves, fern-roots,
and fruits, sometimes attacking sugar plantations ; it
grunts like a pig, and roots in the earth like that
animal.

Perhaps the first paca brought alive to Europe
was the individual which Buffon kept for some time
in his house, and became tame and familiar. A
specimen was living in the London collection as

2IO NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

early as 1829; it was some months in the menagerie,
but died during a spell of severe weather at the
beginning of the winter. Frederic Cuvier has
given an account of the paca in captivity, in which
condition, he says, no animal can discover less
intelligence. It wears, indeed, *' the white flower of
a blameless life," for when not eating it is sleeping.
When irritated, however, it throws itself at the
offending object and makes a grumbling noise ending
in barking; this is almost the only manifestation of
intellect shown by the dull-witted creature.

The interest attaching to the paca is anatomical
and academic rather than bionomic and practical ;
certainly Cuvier did recommend its introduction into
Europe as a delicacy for the table, but roast paca
is not yet included in the menu at the Carlton.

" Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow,"

would perhaps best describe the present species ; from
the museum standpoint, however, the remarkable
dilated hollowed face and sculptured skull, the
curious spotted fur and the colour theories it
suggests, are both interesting and important.

THE TASMANIAN DEVIL.

"The Tasmanian method of taming it is to blow it into
space with a heavy charge of buckshot ; and this seems to be
the only way of rendering it quite harmless/'

Mr. Arthur Mot rison on the Tasmanian devil,
in the Strand Magazine,

Stupid and savage, quarrelsome, merciless, and
bloodthirsty ; these adjectives sum up the moral — or
immoral — attributes of the subject of this Essay.
Few animals indeed are hopelessly untamable,
relentlessly vindictive, unceasingly ferocious ;
almost every species which the liberal policy of
Zoological Societies has enabled the naturalist study
in captivity are capable of first enduring and after-
wards appreciating, contact with civilized man.
The young gorilla learns the meaning of a stick — let
him but see it and he retreats, barking like a terrier :
lions and tigers, leopards and hyaenas, become
tame and often affectionate towards their keepers :
wolves will follow their owners in the street like
collie dogs. Even the more stupid animals at last
make friends ; tapirs have been kept as household
pets, the young anteater whines to be caressed, the
dull-witted manatee learns to look to his keeper for
food. Therefore a singular interest attaches to the
truculent subject of this Essay, a beast whose hand
(or jaw) is against every man's, and every man's

212 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

against his — a fourfooted Ishmael — the ursine
dasyure or Tasmanian devil.

The Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus ur sinus) is
fortunately but a small beast the size of a badger ; the
combined measurement of the head and body is about
twenty-eight inches, with a twelve-inch tail.1 The
head is very large, with a broad, short muzzle ; the ears
are small and rounded ; the body is very squat and
stoutly built. The " great toe " is missing from the
hind foot ; the tail is slightly bushy ; the under fur is
abundant, soft, and woolly. The coloration of this
implacable little brute is as nearly as forbidding as
its disposition, being black or blackish brown
with a white spot on the chest ; other whitish
markings may occur on the neck, shoulders,
and rump, but are very inconstant.2 The iris is
brown.

The Tasmanian devil is entirely confined to the
island from which it takes its name. In the daytime
it sleeps in its burrow, but at night goes out
marauding and is extremely destructive, killing
anything that it can overpower ; even sheep fall a
victim to the persistent ferocity of these little vermin.
Armed with a terrible pair of natural shears, a
single animal is a match for the pluckiest dog ; the

1. The writer once read an absurd sensational account of a meeting
with several of these animals, from which the reader might suppose them
to be as big as haystacks.

2. The specimen in the Liverpool Museum has no white spot on the chest,
though there is one at the junction of the fore limb and shoulder , other-
wise, it is blackish brown all over, unspotted.

THE TASMANIAN DEVIL 213

Tasmanian devil seems insensible to pain and,
though easily trapped with a bait of raw meat, will
readily bite off its own limb to effect its escape.
One of these amateur surgeons was retaken, and his
skin — the biggest in the Australian (Sydney) Museum
at that time — had only three legs, and not a trace of
a stump ! These animals will, on occasion, excavate
their own burrows ; doubtless with their long claws
it is an easy task.

The Tasmanian devil was first described in 1808
by Mr. G. P. Harris, who states that it was then
very common near Hobart Town. Many were
destroyed on account of their depredations on
poultry ; the animals abounded in the neighbouring
woods, which were then unexplored. The convicts
ate the flesh, which was said to resemble veal. A
pair kept by Mr. Harris were very quarrelsome,
and when awake were always fighting, from dusk to
dawn. Perhaps the first live specimen seen in
Europe was the animal trapped on the Derwent
River by men in the employment of Mr. Davidson,
Superintendent of the Government Gardens. Still
untamed after eleven months of captivity, it was sent
to the Surrey Zoological Gardens in England, under
the care of Capt. Riddell, at some time previous to
1839. Dr. J. E. Gray's catalogue of the mammalia in
the British Museum in 1843 not only includes a
specimen presented by Mr. Ronald Gunn, but also
two given by Edward Cross, the well-known

214 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

menagerie proprietor.1 Similarly, the Leyden
Museum contains an example formerly in the
menagerie of Van Aken, in his day a famous
showman.

An amusing story is related of some specimens
received at the Dublin Zoological Gardens. The
animals being expected to arrive at Southampton,
a gentleman interested in them — a certain arch-
bishop by the way — wired from Dublin " Meet
the devils for me." His message aroused the
curiosity of the telegraph operator ; and having
been assured by the waggish archbishop that it was
a Fenian move, she afterwards went to "lay
information " at the Castle. The box containing
these obscure marsupials was met on landing by a
detachment of police — a suitable reception truly, even
considering the actual nature of the passengers—
though perhaps the archbishop, armed with candle,
bell, and book, would have received them even more
appropriately !

Many, years ago, the late Mr. Krefft, of the
Australian Museum at Sydney, kept a Tasmanian
devil ; which, having escaped, in two nights killed
fifty -four fowls, besides six geese and an albatross.
To ensnare so greedy an animal was probably
only a matter of time ; anyway, he was finally
retaken in a strong trap. Retaken, but by no

1. Probably one of these specimens was the animal brought over by
Capt. Riddell.

THE TASMANIAN DEVIL 215

means secured ; for although the door of the trap
was grated with bars as thick as a lead pencil, this
iron-jawed terror sturdily wrenched them aside —
almost doubling up the door — and vanished ! The
blacksmith afterwards attemping to repair the
damage could not bend back the bars without the
aid of tools. An examination of the skull and
dentition of the present species at once explains
its biting powers. Somewhat flattened above,
the skull is expanded laterally ; the zygomatic arches
are strong and heavily ridged, and the lower jaw is
deeply hollowed, so that the powerful temporal and
masseter muscles have firm attachment to the bone.
The canine teeth are trenchant like those of true
carnivora, and even the molar teeth are sharpened
into cutting cusps. Few greater contrasts could be
found than the powerful biting machinery of the
Tasmanian devil and the weak herbivorous dentition
of the leaf-eating koala or native "bear" — both
members of the same natural order — the marsupials.
A Tasmanian devil was received in exchange at
the London Zoological Gardens on October 12,
1903, and a second specimen was deposited in the
collection on April 24, 1906. The writer carefully
examined both these individuals and took several
photographs, one of which is published in this
book. Regarding the soft parts during life, the
lachrymal caruncle (third eyelid) was well marked,
and of a red hue ; the ears inside and outside, the

2l6 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

eyelids, a semicircular area just behind the muzzle,

and the underside of the tail dull flesh tint. The

fur in the centre of the forehead was scanty and

somewhat furrowed, as if a half-hearted attempt had

been made to part it with a comb ; any person

attempting such a task would probably have had

several fingers amputated free of cost. The body

fur was quite sleek and glossy, shorter than the tail

hairs, and recalled the pelt of a black cat. The

insteps of both fore and hind feet were but sparsely

haired, and the under surface of the tail was naked.

The fur of the tail was rough and staring, not neatly

smoothed down ; however, one would never suppose

the Tasmanian devil to be proud of his personal

appearance ! The ears were fringed with a border

of very fine hairs, and shell-like in contour, the

inferior fourth of the pinna being delicately scalloped

along the border. A spray of tactile hairs adorned

each cheek.

In spite of statements to the contrary, the present
species is not so strictly nocturnal as might be
supposed. It will bask in the sunshine, lying flat on
its stomach with its throat on the ground, fore legs
extended before it, and hind legs stretched out
behind ; there is no ceremony with this son of the
bush. An individual moving about during the
daytime stood shivering (apparently quite voluntarily)
silent, and dim-sighted ; the tail was held out
behind, just clear of the ground. The animal

THE TASMANIAN DEVIL 217

stretched itself; then stood again in practically the
same position, stupidly resting its nose against the
cage front. Still quite silent, it moved waddling to
its water-vessel ; then took a drink with a loud
lapping noise. Next Weary Willie dragged himself
about on his stomach, with throat and jaw applied
to the floor ; after a very short settling down he lay
flat on his stomach, as if about to go to sleep.
Although silent, the creature on this occasion was
uneasy and restless, and it was quite depressing to
watch it ; there was plenty of food and water, so
that it could not have been hungry. The writer
finds in his note-book a record of this species active
at 6 p.m. on May n, 1906; about 7.20 it was
reared up against the bars, snuffing and occasionally
uttering a short coughing note. When irritated the
Tasmanian devil utters a ferocious sobbing growl
and bites severely.

A specimen which lived for a year in the Calcutta
Zoological Gardens never took any exercise. It was
tempted with live prey which, however, it was never
noticed to kill. For about a fortnight before its
death it refused all food ; the autopsy revealed an
enormous diseased liver about six times the normal
size, which perhaps explained everything.

THE DUCKBILLED PLATYPUS.

" Then comes a quadruped as big as a large cat, with the
eyes, colour, and skin of a mole, and the bill and web-feet
of a duck, puzzling Dr. Shaw, and rendering the latter half
of his life miserable, from his utter inability to determine
whether it was a bird or a beast."

Sidney Smith.

This amusing description by a witty divine well
sums up the external characters of the extraordinary
duckbill or ornithorhynchus. Bat and hedgehog,
giraffe and okapi, great anteater and tree-kangaroo,
may well be instanced as singular creatures : but
amongst the monotrematous mammals — echidnas,
proechidnas, and duckbill — one finds natural marvels
equalling if not exceeding anything known amongst
the higher groups.

The duckbilled platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus]
— mullingong of the Australian natives — measures
about nineteen inches in total length, and a good speci-
men weighs at least five pounds. The extraordinary
beak-like muzzle really does recall the bill of a duck ;
it is expanded and flattened, and during life is
bordered by a sensitive vascular membrane, though
after death this dries to a hard blackened skin.
The eyes are small and placed high on the head ;
the ears have no external conch ; the aural orifice
can be expanded and contracted by muscular action.
The mole-like body is depressed and oval ; the limbs
are strong and short ; the feet are expanded, and

THE DUCKBILLED PLATYPUS 219

webbed like a duck's ; the tail is broad, flat, and often
nearly bare underneath. The fur of this amazing
creature is dense, crisp, and woolly, with a scanty
admixture of longer hairs; it is often disreputably
ragged, especially on the underside of the tail. The
general colour of the duckbill is dull blackish brown ;
the eyes are brown, and are encircled by a ring of
whitish or yellowish fur.

Male duckbills are armed on the heel with a
spur an inch long, moveable, and traversed by a
delicate canal which opens near the apex by a
longitudinal slit ; this spur seems to be no mere
ornament, being connected with a large spongy
gland at the back of the thigh ; young females
(though not adult ones) also carry a rudimentary
spur. The weapon is probably used by the animal
in fighting in the breeding season, but it appears
capable also of inflicting a wound on the human
skin, by means of a lateral and inward movement
of the hind legs.1 Many years ago a fisher boy on
taking up some nets on the Murray River found an
unfortunate duckbill entangled in them ; the animal
grasped his hand convulsively with its hind feet,
inflicting a wound which persisted in festering for
many months. Again, a gentleman who recaptured
an escaped duckbill received a severe punctured
wound on the back of the hand, in addition to a

1. It is said that a yellowish fluid (? poison) has been expressed from
the crural gland through the opening in the spur.

220 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

slight tear in the palm ; the pain was intense, almost
paralysing the sufferer, and causing him to feel faint,
so that it was half an hour before he could stand
unaided. The arm swelled up to the shoulder, and
the pain in the hand continued very severe. The
wounds themselves healed up quickly ; but a week
afterwards the hand was still very tender, though
the swelling had subsided. The patient gradually
improved ; the duckbill got away after all !

The flattened beak of the duckbill forms a very
efficient trowel ; it is covered with sensitive skin
and crowded with minute tactile organs. Perhaps
the hilt-like fold at the base of the beak protects the
eyes by preventing the instrument from being thrust
too deeply into the mud when feeding. The under-
surface of the bill is very beautiful translucent pink,
showing a congeries of delicate bloodvessels. These
animals have very capacious cheek-pouches ; in
young individuals a few molar teeth occur in each
jaw. The teeth are evanescent, however, being
replaced later by two pairs of horny plates ; of these
cornules the anterior is sharp and narrow, the
posterior flat and expanded. The palate is ribbed
like a duck's ; the small tongue cannot be protruded
from the mouth, in marked contrast to the taper
organ of the related echidna.

The duckbill inhabits Southern and Eastern
Australia, as far as the i8th degree of south
latitude, and Tasmania. It is aquatic and nocturnal,

THE DUCKBILLED PLATYPUS 221

frequenting broad deep rivers which flow slowly,
and are well-grown with water plants ; from twenty
to eighty individuals may occur in a single pool.
This quaint beast resembles a duck even in its food.
It lives on worms and insects, and is very destructive
to salmon spawn ; its diet also includes a hardshelled
mussel (Corbicula nepeanensis). The food is first
grubbed up and stored monkey-fashion in the large
cheek-pouches ; the animal then rests from its
labours, drifting on the surface like a black bottle,
with head and beak held vertically, and chewing and
swallowing the supplies it has already obtained.
The duckbill then paddles along for a few moments,
using the fore paws almost entirely ; then dives once
more to dig fresh dainties out of the mud. These
animals are almost entirely aquatic and are strong
swimmers ; the pictures in popular natural histories
give quite a false impression of their habits. They
merely leave the water to retire to their sleeping
appartments by a submerged entrance, and to figure
them as creeping about the herbage like a watervole
is absurdly inaccurate.

The burrows of the duckbill are constructed in
the banks of streams. There is a land entrance —
which is little used — and also a water entrance, the
two passages uniting into a terminal tunnel, at the
end of which the sleeping compartment is situated.
This terminal portion is smooth, from twenty to
fifty feet long, and runs obliquely upwards ; oval in

222 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

shape, the bedroom is luxuriously carpeted with dry
water- weeds, roots, grass, etc. It has been suggested
that the little-used upper entrance acts mainly as a
ventilator to the burrow. Lieutenant the Hon.
Lauderdale Maule once took two young duckbill
and their mother from a nest on the Fish River.
The young ones were four inches long ; their
stomachs only contained coagulated milk — no
worms, etc., were found, though they were carefully
examined with a lens. Individuals of this age
(fourteen days) have the beak very short and
provided with ample fleshy edges for sucking ; the
tongue extends well forward in the mouth, and the
lower jaw is very flexible. The situation of the eye
is merely indicated by a few furrows in the skin ;
the neck, body, limbs, and tail are all wrinkled.

The duckbill is one of the few mammals that
lay eggs. The yolk is large as compared with the
embryo ; the shell is strong, flexible, and leathery.
Two eggs, about the size of a house-sparrow's, are
usually laid ; they are about three-quarters of an
inch long, and are deposited on the dry root-carpet
of the sleeping apartment. The female broods them
like a sitting hen, her body temperature, normally
below that of most other mammals, becoming raised
for the purpose. The young are at first naked, but
specimens that have attained a length of ten inches
are covered with handsome, sleek, unworn fur, soft,
bright, and almost white below.

THE DUCKBILLED PLATYPUS 223

The duckbill was first noticed by Dr. Shaw—
the describer of the apteryx or wingless bird of
New Zealand — in the " Naturalist's Miscellany " for
1799. The first specimen of each was declared to
be a fraud ; naturalists would not allow that the beak
of the duckbill was really attached to the body until
the genuineness of the creature was established by
Sir Henry Holford. Shaw's original specimen of the
duckbill — a young individual — is now in the National
Collection, having been presented by Mr. R. Latham ;
the apteryx which he described in 1812 — brought
over by Captain Barclay and then the only specimen
known — is in the Derby Museum at Liverpool. "On
a subject so extraordinary as the present," observes
Dr. Shaw of the duckbill, " a degree of scepticism is
not only pardonable but laudable." Determined to
investigate the real character of the beak, Shaw
macerated it in water to render every part completely
movable, of course with satisfactory results. This
individual skin measured thirteen inches in extreme
length, the beak occupying an inch and a half ; the
palate had been removed. Two more specimens
sent by Governor Hunter to Sir Joseph Banks
during 1779-1801 confirmed the genuineness of
Shaw's specimen. In 1812 an ornithorhynchus was
exhibited in Mr. Bullock's Museum at the Egyptian
Hall ; probably it was one of the two sent to Sir
Joseph Banks, since that gentleman's name figures
amongst the donors to the museum. For a long time

224 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS

the Nepean River and its neighbourhood remained
the only known haunt of these animals. The duckbill
has never yet been brought alive to Europe, though
one did survive a portion of the journey; perhaps
this was the individual intended for the Frankfort
Zoological Gardens some four years ago, which failed
to reach its destination. These animals have been
kept in the Zoological Gardens at Melbourne in a
fenced pond well supplied with insects and water
plants ; and could a sufficient quantity of natural
food — say water mussels — be taken on the voyage,
a living ornithorhynchus might yet be seen in this
country. Many years ago Mr. Bennett had some
young duckbill alive in Australia. If disturbed when
asleep they growled, but when awake they were
good tempered, playing together like young puppies,
and pretending to bite. In spite of every care they
died in a few weeks.

These words conclude this Essay ; and this Essay
concludes the present work ; and the present work
completes a series of three volumes dealing with the
mammalia. Written on the same plan throughout,
the Essays will, it is hoped, serve as some introduc-
tion to the class of which they treat. A brief review
of the subject may not be out of place ; let us call
some of the actors before the curtain. The tiny
fennec fox steals across the sand dunes, preying on
the jerboa rats in the moonlit desert ; the long-extinct
blaauwbok stands at gaze, its handsome horns

THE DUCKBILLED PLATYPUS 225

sweeping backwards in a bold curve, and its dun
coat tinted with velvety blue. The white rhinoceros
grazes over the sunbaked veldt, its three-foot
horn almost sweeping the ground ; sable in
the silver moonlight, the antbear attacks the
termite citadel. The spectre tarsier, round-headed
and goggle-eyed, leaps from bough to bough like a
mammalian frog ; the clouded tiger, in its robe of
sable and fulvous, dozes unnoticed in the tree-tops.
The Arctic fox ambushes the lemming on the frozen
hillside ; strong troops of bison wallow in the Russian
marshes ; clouds of blesbok bedeck the green veldt
in purple masses. The Polar landscape, cold and
white in the moonbeams, lies icy under a spangle
of stars ; from a sky of brass the torrid sun
of noonday beats unceasingly on the glowing
Sahara. Fast there crowd upon the vision the
actors in Nature's drama ; handsome ocelot and grim
hyaena, giant walrus and sturdy musk ox, quaint
bubal and bristling porcupine. For one moment
they stand out vivid and distinct, then flicker into
dimness. The story is ended, the series completed,
the curtain rings down upon the players,

" And I beheld and saw them one by one
Pass, and become as nothing in the night."

Price 6s. each, Postage 5d.

net.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

"Natural History Essays."
'More Natural History Essays."

PRESS NOTICES.

* * The author has attempted to describe typical examples
of the African fauna, regarded both from the zoological
and from the historical standpoint. And he has succeeded
in writing some most fascinating natural history essays.
Africa is rich in the romance of natural history. Here
we have a true romance — an orderly and deeply
interesting marshalling of facts, the outcome of several
years' investigation and research by a patient and
accurate naturalist, as readable as a good novel, and full
of information." — Manchester Guardian.

" Every writer on natural history who is worth reading
has his own point of view, and on a not too slavish
fidelity to this depends in great measure the interest of
his work. Dr. Graham Renshaw .... has already
given to those who flirt with science an interesting
volume of essays on the fauna of a single Continent . . .
an evidently wide range of reading, an intimate acquaint-
ance with the cases in many museums, and not a little
experience of other lands combine to broaden his views

to the great benefit of non-professional readers

Dr. Renshaw has in fact the charm of writing well round
his subject. . . . Very attractive are his word pictures
of the great Karoo in the days when South Africa was a

IV.

paradise for hunters and not the preserve of millionaires,
of a Sahara desert scene, and of the Caribbean . . . and
a happy expression here and there rivets itself in the
reader's memory, as when, for instance, he calls the
adaptive hairy armadillo 'the Vicar of Bray' of the
Pampas, when he alludes to the trained cheeta as a
'feline greyhound,' and where he styles Cuvier the
'Columbus of the antediluvian world.'' —Tribune.

"Mr. Renshaw's essays are decidedly original in the
treatment of the subject. They deal not merely with the
natural history of animals, but also with the history of
our knowledge of them. . . . Never before, indeed, has
the history of mammalian forms been more attractively
presented to the public. The history of the discovery
of some of these grand forms of life is often a true
romance of natural history which, appealing strongly to
the author, is graphically re-told by him ; and his
enthusiasm enables him to carry the reader with him
to see in his mind's eye the country inhabited by the
beasts he describes, and to feel some of the keen delight
experienced by the hunter-naturalist when some such
beautiful trophy as the sable antelope rewarded him
for all his toil. He excels in describing the natural
scenery, the setting, of the subjects of his essays; and,
writing of the Malay tapir of 'antediluvian appearance,'
conjures up a most realistic mental picture of the home
of the Palaeotheres, their ancient representatives, when,
in far-off days, they roamed over swamps covering the
present site of Paris." — Nature.

" Mr. Renshaw has gone somewhat farther afield than
most writers who have dealt with the same species, by
giving a fuller account of their history, with details of
their first mention by old authors, and reference to the
naturalists by whom they were originally described. On

V.

these points he has brought together from various
sources some interesting information not generally
accessible, the collection of which indicates a good deal
of research." — Field.

" Dr. Renshaw has performed a useful task in giving
us this volume of twenty scholarly and well-informed
essays on such mammals as the Vampire Bat, the Malay
Tapir, Steller's extinct Sea-Cow, the Chinchilla, the
Echidna, and the Spectre Tarsier .... his chapters
contain abundant proof of first-hand knowledge of the
animals, either in the field, in the zoological gardens of
Europe, or in the museum." — Nature Notes.

1 'Mr. Renshaw7 is a traveller of experience and
observation, and as a naturalist he is a thorough master
of his subject. Hence the ease and grace of these
extremely interesting essays. The many illustrations
materially enhance the attractiveness of the volume." —
Scotsman.

"Mr. Renshaw writes so pleasantly of the animals
with which he is familiar, makes us appreciate so
thoroughly the peculiarities that environment has
developed, takes us about the world and shows us where
and how these animals live, and, above all, gives point
to his illustrations by such admirable illustrations of the
fauna described that, like all able teachers, he would
persuade us that we know more about these animals than
we really do ... we would fain appeal to Mr. Renshaw
for more and yet more of his fascinating description of
these unfamiliar animals." — Liverpool Post.

" Dr. Renshaw, the well-known lecturer and writer,
has supplemented his " Natural History Essays" of last
year by a companion volume of equal worth and interest.
. . . The author has the happy knack of handling his

VI.

subject so that the man in the street can follow him in
his beautifully lucid descriptions of the habits of the
various strange creatures brought forward for exhibition
and examination. Moreover, with the skill of the
naturalist, Dr. Renshaw combines, in a remarkable
degree, the faculty of the artist in presenting a word-
picture of the wild beast in his natural habitat, a
description, in fact, from which a clever artist might
paint a lifelike picture." — Chester Courant.

"The author has accumulated a large number of
scientific and statistical details, and is thoroughly capable
of sifting and estimating them at their true value. His
studies of such animals as the vanished Quagga and
Blaauwbok, and the vanishing white Rhinoceros, as well
as of various scarce and little-known species not yet
seriously endangered, are well worth notice as full and
trustworthy records." — Country Gentleman.

" The author presents us in this volume with a series 01
extremely interesting essays on some of the more
remarkable mammalian types. . . . Mr. Renshaw writes
with an easy grace that lends an additional charm to all
that he has to say. Tastefully bound, and well illus-
trated, this is a book that should find many friends. "-
Knowledge.

"Mr. Renshaw .... is evidently an omnivorous
reader of natural history, and has the gift of compressing
a great deal of interesting matter into remarkably small
compass. Necessarily the book contains much of a
technical character ; but, generally speaking, it is written
in a manner which will prove attractive to even the new
adventurer into the realms of natural history, and is
certainly calculated to stimulate interest in our
museums." — Manchester City News.