ELAND (Dutch, elk, Ger. Mead, Lith. anis, stag. Gk. XXos.,ellos, fawn). The largest of Afri can antelopes (arias canna). It is so bovine in general appearance that it was at once called 'elk' by the Dutch pioneers of South Africa, and the males and females are yet spoken of as bull and cow. It is as large as a tall horse, well-grown examples reaching six feet in height, and weigh ing sometimes as much as 1500 pounds, though the average weight does not exceed 1000 pounds. The massive form is shown in the illustration on the Plate of ANTELOPES. The usual color is a bright rich fawn, with the hair short and smooth: but in age the bulls lose much hair, so that the blue tint of the skin shows beneath it. A broad, deep-fringed dewlap reaches to the knee. The horns are very strong. rise straight upward, with considerable spreading. and are about twenty-eight inches long in large bulls, and a little longer, but more slender, in the cows.
The flesh is exceedingly good eating (except in the dry season), and the hide of much value for harness, etc.; moreover, their gentleness. weight, and consequently their comparative slowness, with their habit of moving in herds, make them a com paratively easy prey. Hence the eland was practically exterminated from South Africa by 1890, and those of Central Africa were nearly swept away by rinderpest a few years later. Very few are left even in the remotest districts. Many examples have been kept in captivity and found amenable to domestication. Native names were canna and impoofo. In western equatorial Africa a second and considerably larger species (Orcas Del-Manus) still exists in large numbers.