BUSHBUCKS, KOODOOS, AND ELANDS 469 



ourselves — whereas the eland is at once left behind by fright- 

 ened oryx or hartebeest — as we have, also, ourselves seen. 

 The moose is even more of a trotter than either eland or 

 wapiti. Young moose will occasionally gallop, not only 

 when frightened, but even when at play; but the old animals 

 practically never break their trot, except that, as we have 

 been informed by entirely trustworthy hunters, when sud- 

 denly and greatly startled they may plunge forward for a few 

 rods in a kind of rolling run. We ourselves once saw the 

 tracks where a big (although perhaps not quite full-grown) 

 moose had thus plunged for a few jumps at a gallop. These 

 very big and heavy species of antelope and deer evidently find 

 the trot, and not the gallop, their natural-speed gait, whereas 

 the smaller deer and antelope find the gallop equally natural 

 — although the gerunuk trots fast and the Rocky Mountain 

 blacktail proceeds by buck-jumps. The big zebra trots much 

 more freely than the small zebra. From these examples it 

 would seem natural to lay down the rule that increase in 

 size and bulk tends to make the trot mechanically prefera- 

 ble to the canter and gallop. But this does not apply to 

 cattle: bison and buffalo, unlike eland and moose, always 

 gallop when at speed; and the giraffe, which is bigger and 

 heavier than any of the pure trotters, never trots at all, 

 passing immediately from a walk to a canter or gallop. It 

 all illustrates anew how limited our knowledge really is, and 

 how cautious we must be in dogmatizing, or in glibly advanc- 

 ing explanation theories of universal applicability. 



The flesh of the eland is good, perhaps better than that 

 of any other antelope; although personally we sometimes 

 thought Tommy and reedbuck equalled it. We do not think 

 the flesh of African antelopes as good eating as the venison 



