The record-union., 1899-05-01
VANISHING FAUNA.
SPECIES PECULIAR TO AFRICA
NEARLY EXTINCT.
Slaughter of Acknowledgements
anus, Antelope, Gnu, Giraffe
and Zebra Almost Gone.

anus, Antelope, Gnu, Giraffe
and Zebra Almost Gone.
The rapid diminution in the number
of many kinds of big game in Africa,
and the extinction, within living MEM
ory, of some others, are matters of COM
mon knowledge to sportsmen and natu-
rahsts. That wild animals are always
driven back before advancing civiliza-
ton is truism. The slaughter of the
African fauna, however, has been SO
great and SO purposeless that, could the
story of the last hundred years be told
in all it's fullness, it would appear in
credible.
Naturally, the elephant claims first
place-sIt is still fairly abundant in Gen.
trail Africa, but in South Africa, where
it formerly swarmed, it is rapidly av-
preaching extinction.
/ Oswell, the friend of Livingstone, who
first visited Africa on hunting expe-
dition in 1914, has told the story, all
too briefly, of his experiences, and ex-
pressed the opinion that to our great
great grandchildren the African ele-
plant will be as the mammoth is to u.s.
! Kirby clothes the same opinion in al
most identical language, and. after urg-
ing that the past, which cannot be re-
called, should induce sportsmen to shoot
| fairly, and be satisfied with enough is
| justly severe on those who deliberately
bowl over ewes and cows" with the one
| idea of topping the record. The traffic
in ivory means the extinction of the ele-
| plant, but to kill an elephant for it's
| tuSks seems the worst possible use to
which one can put such a mighty beast.
| Sir Samuel Baker pleaded for protec-
| ton, and still more strongly that some
| attempt should be made to domesticate
| the African elephant, condemning the
| apathy even of European settlers. who
| have hitherto ignored the capabilities Of
| this useful creature % When the late
| Sultan of Zanzibar visited our Zoolog-
! ical Gardens, and saw Jumbo carrying
| loads of delighted children, he asked
why these animals were not utilized in
! his own country The late Mr.. Bartlett
was always interested in the subject
and advocated as does Mr.. Sclater, the
| Secretary Of the Geological Society, the
| bringing over of trained Indian ele-
| plants, and natives used to keddah
| work, to East Africa. Gordon, too,
hoped to employ the elephant in trans
| port in Africa, and, shortly before the
! fall of Khartoum, wrote to Mr.. Sclater
on the subject In Cape Colony the ele-
plant has been protected since 1880.
permit being necessary to kill single
specimen; there is also measure of
protection in the East Africa Protecto-
rate, and in German East Africa, where
a permit for two elephants and two rili-
noceroses costs f25.
The hippopotamus appears to be ex-
tinct in Natal, where the last specimen,
| fine old bull, now in the Durham Mu-
scum, was killed about twelve months
ago, the Government having consented
to the determination of the small herd
living in Sea Cow Lake, a small lagoon
| near Durham, on account of the damage
they did in the sugar-cane plantations
The few that still remain in Zululand
are aid that are left in British South
Africa Rhinoceroses, too, are becom-
ing scarce, and the white, or square
mouthed form, is practically extinct In
1856 fifteen were killed, and in the fol-
lowing year Selous saw the tracks of
two or three. Writing in 1893, that ia
nous hunter said that, twenty years
before, 1T was common animal over an
enormous extent of country in Central
South Africa. In the same year MI
Coryndon obtained two specimens, one.
of which went to the British Museum
Natural History and the other to
Walter Rothschild's museum at Tring
A SAD TALE ABOUT ANTELOPES
There is a sad tale to tell about the
antelopes. CORVALLIS Harris hunted in
South Africa late in the ''thirties,' and
describing the game on, tract near the
Vaal River, in the Orange Free State
he says: The number of wild animals
on this swanpy fiat almost realized ia
Bile, the roads made by their incessant
tramp resembling so many elltraveled
highways. AT every step incredible
herds of bontebucks, blesbucks and
springbucks, with troops of gnus and
squadrons of the common or stripeless
quagga- We're performing their compli-
Gated evolutions; and not infrequently
knEt of Ostriches, decked in their
white plumes, played the part of general
officer and staff with such strict pro-
priety as further to remind the specta-
tor of a cavalry review
The blesbuck is now SO scarce that it
can be hardly reckoned a beast of
chase; and Mr.. Dryden says that the
scant remnants of the once innumera-
Bile herds are living on a few farms in
the Orange Free State and the Trans
vaal, under the care of Boer farmers.
The experiment is an extremely inter
esting one-and others of the same kind
are being carried on. Mr.. Dryden points
out that within the next few years we
shall know whether this antelope is to
be rescued from utter eXticntion, or is
doomed to vanish miserably from the
face of the earth. The bontebuck u.s.
perhaps, worse off as regards num-
bers; for their remains but a single
herd, living. strictly preserved. in the
south of Cape Colony. The numbers
of the springbuck have, indeed, dfmin-
ished, but it may still be said to be fair
ly abundant in South Africa, thanks to
the protection afforded it in Cape Col.
ony, the Orange Free State and the
Transvaal.
White-tailed gnus@are rapidly reach,
ing vanishing point, though one writer
on popular natural history recently de-
clared in print that they wander about
in herds of from eight to ten to forty
and that hunters find out their lairs
and shoot them in order to eat their
flesh, which is dried and made into
what the Beers call biltong" Neverthed
less, it is safer to accept the account
given of this antelope by Mr.. Dryden.
that it is probably extinct in wild
condition but preserved in the Orange
Free State, where some six or seven