After Le Vaillant’s time little further addition was made to the history of this Antelope until the publication (in 1811 and 1812) of Lichtenstein’s ‘Travels in Southern Africa,’ in which several allusions to it will be found. In the first of these Lichtenstein, on the way from Swellendam to Algoa Bay in December 1803, tells us that much game—Antelopes and Zebras—was met with in the mountains near the Buffalo-jagt River, “but the beautiful Blau-bok (Antilope leucophæa) is, as Barrow has correctly supposed, almost exterminated. In the year 1800 one was shot, of which the skin is now at Leyden, but since then no more have been seen.” In the second volume of his ‘Reise,’ when on the Dweika, between Stellenbosch and Graaf Reinet, in the following December, Lichtenstein informs us that game was plentiful in the inner valleys of the mountains, and continues:—“Here are still found the Zebra, the Bontebok, and the Reh-bok in comparative abundance, and even the Blau-bok (Antilope leucophæa, which is almost exterminated elsewhere, is said to occur occasionally.” In his celebrated article upon the genus Antilope, published in the ‘Magazin der Gesellschaft naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin,’ two years subsequently, Lichtenstein, after a description of this species from the specimen at Berlin, continues as follows:—“The skin which I describe is, unfortunately, the last that has been seen. Since 1799, when this specimen was shot, no more have been met with, and it is known that this Antelope was found only in the now well-populated district of Zwellendam, and nowhere else. Apparently this beautiful animal is now quite extinct.”
The animal having been thus exterminated towards the end of the last century, its very existence became a matter of doubt to some naturalists, who were inclined to consider the specimens of it left in our museums as small or immature individuals of the nearly allied Roan Antelope (H. equinus). This view was taken by Andrew Smith[3], de Blainville, Gray, and even Harris, who, one would think, might have learned better from the traditions on the subject prevalent among the Boers. But the accurate Sundevall was strongly against this opinion, and, after examining the specimens at Upsala, Stockholm, and Paris, said decidedly “Minimè animal fictum, ut credidit A. Smith.” Sundevall, however, failed to convert Gray on this subject, and Gray, although, as he tells us, he had examined the specimen at Paris, chose to unite this species to the Roan Antelope, and to call them both Hippotragus leucophæus.
The most recent authority to vindicate the claims of the Blue-buck to specific distinctness is Herr F. F. Kohl, of Vienna, who, in an article upon new and rare Antelopes in the Imperial Natural History Museum, published in 1866, after accurately describing the specimen in that collection and pointing out its distinctive characters from H. equinus, gave a full list of the various synonyms to be allocated to these two species.
There can be little doubt, therefore, that Hippotragus leucophæus must be regarded as an extinct animal, of which at the present time five mounted specimens only are known to exist. All these we have already alluded to, but we may repeat that they are to be found in the Museums of Paris, Leyden, Vienna, Stockholm, and Upsala.
Finally, however, we are glad to be able to add that, although our National Collection does not contain a complete example of this species, yet it possesses a frontlet and horns which, after careful comparison, we have no hesitation in referring to H. leucophæus. The horns (fig. 88, p. 11) are just 20 inches in length and 6·1 in basal circumference; they have the characteristic ridging and curvature of the horns of the male, and are obviously adult, but their size is less than the horns of the female Roan Antelope. The frontlet on which they are borne measures 3·85 inches between the orbits. The exact origin of this frontlet is not known, but it has been long in the Museum.
Fig. 88.
Frontlet of the Blue-buck.
(From the specimen in the British Museum.)
Our illustration of the Blue-buck (Plate LXXVI.) was put upon stone by Mr. Smit many years ago, from a water-colour sketch by Mr. Wolf, which is now before us. This sketch was drawn by Mr. Wolf under Sir Victor Brooke’s directions, probably from the specimen at Paris, which we believe Sir Victor examined more than once, but we regret to say that there is no certainty on this point. It should be mentioned, however, that the elongation of the hairs on the neck shown in the Plate is probably rather exaggerated, as this species, we are told by Sundevall, had only a very short “neck-mane.”