We will begin with the finest and largest species of this group, the well-known Reedbuck of the English colonists of the Cape, large specimens of which attain a height at the shoulders of thirty-six inches or more. Like the White-tailed Gnu, the Reedbuck was first described at Amsterdam by Allamand, whose account of it is quoted by Buffon in the sixth volume of his supplement to the ‘Histoire Naturelle,’ published in 1782. Buffon gives rough uncoloured figures of both sexes of this animal, under the name of “Le Ritbok,” which he adopts from Allamand. Upon Buffon’s “Ritbok” Boddaert, in his ‘Elenchus Animalium’ three years later, established his “_Antilope arundinum_” and thus furnished the first specific name of the present species. In 1787 Schreber issued a copy of Buffon’s figure of the male “Ritbok” with the name _Antilope eleotragus_ upon it--a term which has been frequently adopted by the older authors, but which, as will be seen, is clearly subsequent in date to that of Boddaert. Bechstein, Shaw, and other authors following them have used _arundinaceus_, the adjectival form, as the specific term of the Reedbuck; but we see no reason for departing from Boddaert’s term of _arundinum_, which is perfectly good grammar. In 1815 Afzelius, in the course of his learned commentary ‘De Antilopis speciatim Guineensibus,’ published at Upsala, introduced further complications into the subject by dividing the Reedbuck into two species. One of these he called “_Antilope cinerea_” based upon the “Ritbok” of Allamand; and the second _Antilope isabellina_, founded upon a South-African specimen in Thunberg’s collection. So far as we can make out, however, Afzelius shows no valid reason for distinguishing the latter species from the former, and we believe that both these names may be safely referred to _Cervicapra arundinum_. It should be noted also that in his ‘List of Mammals in the British Museum,’ published in 1843, Gray called the Reedbuck of the Cape _Eleotragus reduncus_, whereas the specific term _reduncus_ properly appertains to the “Nagor”--the West-African species, of which we shall treat further on. In his subsequent writings, Gray usually reverted to the more correct specific term “_arundinaceus_” for the present species, but sometimes called it “_isabellinus_.”