538 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



size and darkest coloration in the Cape region. The sexes 

 are ahke in coloration, but the female exceeds the male 

 somewhat in body size. The young differ only from the 

 adults in tone of coloration, being darker and uniformly 

 vermiculated with blackish. The under-parts are drab 

 rather than white, and the head lacks any indication of 

 the bright tawny coloration of the adult, although the 

 black median stripe is well marked on the snout and 

 forehead. 



The duiker is widely distributed not only laterally but 

 vertically. We found it feeding at night on the Aberdare 

 Mountains when the temperature was below freezing, and 

 we found it feeding at noon on the hot, dry plains of the 

 Lado, where the leaves of the acacias were shrivelled and 

 the thermometer stood high up in the nineties. It is a 

 solitary little animal, even two being rarely found together. 

 It is never found far away from thick cover, and when 

 alarmed bolts into it without turning to look back. It runs 

 with head extended, occasionally bounding high into the 

 air, and in the bush it runs at full speed in zigzags through 

 places which a hunter can hardly traverse at all. All these 

 bush antelope— bongo, bushbuck, duiker — go at speed, nose 

 straight out, through and under a tangle of branches which it 

 seems literally incredible that they can penetrate. Duikers 

 are browsers; they feed on twigs, leaves, bean pods, and 

 fruits. We found them eating wild olives and also the 

 berries of a plant that looked like nightshade; and in the 

 Lado they ate grass tips and the stems and leaves of a low- 

 growing bush plant. 



The commonest food of the bush duiker is the foliage 

 and yellow berries of the nightshade, Solatium campylacan- 

 thum. On the summit of the Aberdare Range we found the 



