The book of antelopes, vol. 4 (of 4)Sclater, Philip Lutley
Science
The book of antelopes, vol. 4 (of 4)
Sclater, Philip Lutley
Antelopes
In the Musée Alaoui, at the Bardo Palace, Tunis, Sclater was also shown
an unmistakable figure of a Leucoryx attacked by a Lion, represented on
a piece of Roman mosaic pavement. Of this figure Sir Harry Johnston has
kindly furnished us with the accompanying sketch (fig. 92, p. 48).
The mosaic pavement in question, which was discovered among the remains
of a Roman villa in the vicinity of Tunis, contains representations of
various animals of the chase found in that district in Roman times.
The _Gætulus Oryx_ of Juvenal (Sat. xi. 140) was therefore in all
probability the Leucoryx.
We are not aware of any authentic records of the occurrence of the
Leucoryx on the southern frontiers of Algeria and Morocco, where,
in recent times, it has probably been driven far into the interior.
But when we go on as far west as Senegal and Nigeria it would appear
that the Leucoryx, or a form so closely allied to it as to be barely
distinguishable, is still abundant in the Senegambian deserts, and is
also, according to Capt. Mockler-Ferryman, met with on the Nile in the
vicinity of Lokoja.
[Illustration:
Fig. 92.
A Leucoryx attacked by a Lion.
]
The first specimen of the Leucoryx received from Senegal was, so far
as we know, that figured by Geoffroy St.-Hilaire and F. Cuvier in 1819
in the ‘Histoire Naturelle des Mammifères’ (plate 376), which was then
living in the Jardin des Plantes. This, we are told, was an adult male,
standing about four feet high to the top of its head, and having long
and well-developed horns.
When the thirteenth Earl of Derby formed his great menagerie at
Knowsley between 1835 and 1850, the group of the Leucoryx Antelopes was
one of the specialities of the collection. The adult male and female
were figured by Waterhouse Hawkins in plate xvii. of the ‘Gleanings,’
and the young one, born at Knowsley, forms one of the figures in plate
xvi. of the same work.
[Illustration:
Fig. 93.
Young Leucoryx.
(From ‘Zoological Sketches.’)
]
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