Writing of these horns in 1891, Mr. Lydekker was so convinced of their essential difference from those of any other known Antelope that he proposed to raise the animal that bore them to generic rank under the name “Doratoceros.”
Some years subsequently, in 1896, Sclater obtained, on loan, a fine pair of horns of nearly similar character from Mr. Justice Hopley, of Kimberley, and, after comparing them with the typical pair of Antilope triangularis in the British Museum, came to the conclusion that they must have belonged to the same species of Antelope. Mr. Justice Hopley’s pair were not quite so long, rather more incurved backwards, and less broadly spread; they were also smoother at the base, showing but slight traces of corrugations. When exhibiting these horns to the Zoological Society, Mr. Sclater stated that he could see nothing whatever to negative the opinion, already prevailing amongst other naturalists, that these horns were abnormal horns of the cow Eland, which had grown into a lengthened form without making the ordinary twist usually observable in that species and in other Tragelaphs. It is right to add that Mr. Lydekker himself is now also of the same opinion, and has stated (‘Horns and Hoofs,’ p. 260) that these horns “are almost certainly abnormal specimens of those of a cow Eland.”
As we have already stated, living examples of the Eland were received in Holland from the Cape as long ago as about 1783, when they were described by Vosmaer and others as being in the menagerie of the Prince of Orange. In England the first examples of this species of which we can find any record were those which constituted the herd in the celebrated menagerie of Edward, 13th Earl of Derby, President of the Zoological Society of London. There is, unfortunately, little information available as to the origin and history of this celebrated herd, but from some notes published by Lord Derby in the first volume of the ‘Gleanings,’ we learn that the first specimens received were obtained for him by Mr. Burke from the Cape in November 1842, and consisted of two males and a female. The female first bred in August 1843, and produced young in 1844, 1845, and 1846, at which date Lord Derby remarked that he had in his possession four males and two females of this Antelope. At the dispersal of the Derby Menagerie by auction in October 1851 the Knowsley herd consisted of two males and three females. These passed into the Gardens of the Zoological Society of London, having been selected out of the whole stock by the Council of the Society in virtue of a bequest by Lord Derby to that Society of any group of animals in his collection that they might prefer.
The original stock of the Zoological Society’s herd of Elands consisted, therefore, of these five animals received by the Society in December 1851. Of these an old female had been born at Knowsley in 1846, and the other individuals, two males and two females, had been imported by Lord Derby in 1850. These animals throve well in their new quarters and began to increase rapidly. As will be seen by the list given in Wolf and Sclater’s ‘Zoological Sketches’ (vol. i.), two calves were born in 1853, three in 1854, four in 1855, and four in 1856. The first additions made to the original stock were a female presented by the late Sir George Grey in April 1859, and a male received in exchange from Viscount Hill in November of the same year. Since the date of its first institution, the Zoological Society’s herd of Elands has never failed, although occasionally reduced to somewhat small dimensions. Nearly every year one or more Eland-calves have been born in the Gardens, and care has been taken to lose no opportunity of introducing fresh blood whenever the occasion has offered. At the present moment, however, we regret to say, in consequence of the great difficulties now prevailing in obtaining living examples of the larger Antelopes of Africa, the Eland is represented in the Society’s Antelope-House by only two specimens, namely, a male, about six years old, bred in the Jardin d’Acclimatation of Paris, and received on October 12, 1898, and a young female, purchased of Herr Reiche, of Alfeld, in April 1899. The latter is more rufous in colouring and shows slight traces of stripes, which, however, she may probably lose when quite adult.
From these two specimens our illustration of Taurotragus oryx typicus (Plate XCVIII.) has been prepared by Mr. Smit.
Besides the Zoological Society’s animals, the only herd of Elands that we are aware of now existing in this country is that belonging to the Duke of Bedford, the President of the Zoological Society of London, which is kept in the beautiful Park at Woburn, along with a splendid series of Deer and other Ungulates. Through the kindness of His Grace we have been furnished with the following particulars concerning this herd, which now consists of fourteen individuals. Three of these are adult females, two of which were purchased from dealers, and the third from the Zoological Society of London, in whose Gardens it was bred. The adult male was purchased of Herr Reiche, of Alfeld. Five young males and two females have been bred at Woburn up to the end of 1899. Three calves, one male and two females, have been born at Woburn since the commencement of the present year.
Allusion has already been made to the Elands possessed by the late Roland, Viscount Hill, who, about the year 1861, possessed a fine herd of these animals. When visited by Sclater about that date, Lord Hill’s stock consisted of three males and seven females, which were kept at his Lordship’s residence Hawkstone, in Shropshire. They were the produce of individuals principally purchased by him from the Zoological Society, and were kept in grazing paddocks in Hawkstone Park. Unfortunately, a few years later Lord Hill lost his interest in these animals and got rid of them.
About the same period John, 2nd Marquis of Breadalbane, likewise purchased a herd of Elands, which, however, we believe, was not maintained long after the Marquis’s death in 1862.
In almost all the Zoological Gardens of the Continent also the Eland is a well-known object of interest, and in many of them, until the last few years, has thriven well and produced its kind; but, as already mentioned, the supply of Elands from abroad has recently much decreased, and at the present time there is a great difficulty in keeping our herds of Elands in Europe up to the mark by the necessary introduction of fresh blood.
One of the chief ornaments of the Mammal-Gallery in the British Museum is the mounted pair of Livingstone’s Elands obtained by Mr. F. C. Selous in Mashonaland in 1883. The male (as Mr. Selous informs us) was shot near Sadza’s Kraal, west of Marandalla’s, a station on the main road from Salisbury to Umtali, in July of that year, and the female near Salisbury in the following October. The male stands 67¾ inches high at the withers, and carries a pair of horns 22½ inches in length in a straight line; the female is 57½ inches in height, and has horns 27 inches in length. In both these animals the lateral stripes are well defined, and there are no black patches above the knee on the fore leg of the male, though in the female the patches are slightly visible. These specimens are fair representatives of Taurotragus oryx livingstonii, and have been figured as such in our illustration (Plate XCIX.), prepared by Smit. But it is right to add that it appears that the skins have apparently shrunk slightly in drying, as in his measurements of the male specimen in question, lately given in the ‘Great and Small Game of Africa’ (p. 426), Mr. Selous states that the height of this animal, “taken on the naked carcase after the skin had been removed,” was 69 inches. Moreover, in former days there were probably still larger specimens, as such reliable authorities as Barrow and Harris agree in stating that the old male Elands were known to attain a height of 6½ feet at the withers.