522 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



They feed, however, where the ground is merely moist, or 

 with only an inch or two of water, and where ant-hills dot 

 the stretches of tall grass. They are grazers and crop the 

 delicate grass of these moist stretches. Unlike the kob they 

 never mount the ant-hills to watch; their trust is in skulk- 

 ing under cover out of the reach of danger, and not in de- 

 tecting danger afar off and then fleeing in the open. They 

 are among the most noisy of antelope, continually uttering 

 croaking grunts ; when a herd is suspicious or slightly alarmed 

 these grunts make a perfect chorus. The animals almost 

 always kept to the cover of the tall grass, walking and trot- 

 ting with their necks outstretched, and the heads below the 

 level of the blade tops. Looking out over the marsh from 

 an ant-heap, we might at first see nothing; then, two or three 

 hundred yards off, a dozen heads would pop up, gaze steadily 

 at us, disappear, and then, after an interval of a couple of 

 minutes or so, reappear several hundred yards farther off. 

 Usually they skulked off at a trot or canter, with neck out- 

 stretched; but occasionally they galloped, now and then 

 making great bounds over the tops of the tall grass. At 

 other times they would stand in the tall grass until we were 

 but a score of yards off, although they were completely 

 screened from our view; then away they would steal, some- 

 times grunting loudly. The flexible pasterns and spread 

 hoofs leave big marks in the mud. The beasts make a tre- 

 mendous noise as they smash through the reeds and splash 

 across the shallow lagoons. Some of the biggest-bodied 

 bucks, with longest horns, did not have the white on the 

 withers and the back of the neck. Perhaps, in addition to 

 being a mark of sex and age, their white coloration only 

 develops seasonally. 



