At the Knowsley auction in 1851 only a pair of the present species were put up for sale. They were purchased by a dealer for Wombwell’s Menagerie at the price of £283 10s.
The Zoological Society seems to have acquired examples of the White-tailed Gnu as early as 1830, and this animal has remained represented in the collection, except for a few short intervals, ever since. Unfortunately, however, the Society was never successful in getting a breeding pair together until about two years ago, when a fine young male and two females were purchased of Mr. C. Reiche, of Alfeld. These have thriven well in the Antelope-House, and the first young Gnu was born on the 7th of March last. It grew fast and at the present time it is nearly as large as its parents.
Fig. 15 a.
Young White-tailed Gnu (eight months old).
(Zool. Soc. Gard. 1894.)
The accompanying drawings by Mr. Smit (figs. 15 and 15 a) show this animal at the respective ages of five months and eight months.
The most successful results, however, in breeding the White-tailed Gnu have been obtained by Mr. F. E. Blaauw, Secretary to the Royal Zoological Society of Amsterdam, in his park at Westerveld, near Hilversum, in North Holland, on which he has been kind enough to furnish us with the following information:—Mr. Blaauw purchased his first pair of Gnus in 1886 from the Jardin d’Acclimatation at Paris. They arrived in winter and were kept in a covered shed without artificial warmth until the following spring, when they were turned out to a grass enclosure of about eight acres, well sheltered by plantations, and with a shed divided into compartments in one corner. The Gnus and their descendants have been kept in this enclosure ever since. In winter they are usually confined inside the house and fed on hay and oats, because the young ones are frequently born in winter and require a certain amount of protection. In the summer the Gnus never enter the shed, and subsist entirely by grazing.
Treated in this fashion the Gnus in Mr. Blaauw’s possession have succeeded in a wonderful way. From the single pair originally purchased and the two young females first born, no less than fourteen young Gnus have been successfully reared, and only two have been lost, having been born in the open field during severe frost.
Mr. Blaauw’s present herd consists of the original pair purchased in 1886, two adult females (the offspring of this pair born in 1886 and 1887), and two young ones born in May and June of the present year.