THE GAZELLES AND THEIR ALLIES 603 



tion which is founded on a mounted specimen secured by 

 Jackson in British East Africa, it is available for the gazelle 

 inhabiting the interior highlands. 



The Thomson gazelle, everywhere known as the Tommy, 

 is an abundant animal on the plains of much of British 

 East Africa. Its range roughly corresponds with the 

 range of the common kongoni hartebeest and the wilde- 

 beest; why it should not, like the zebra, extend this range 

 to take in other stretches of country of seemingly the same 

 character is hard to understand. It is another case like 

 that of the hartebeests, like that of the topi and the wilde- 

 beests, where the sharply drawn line of distribution seems 

 entirely artificial, there being no difi^erence of flora or of 

 climate to account for the abundance of the species in one 

 place and its absence from another place substantially the 

 same in character. 



The Tommy is the smallest of the true plains game. It 

 is purely a beast of the open grass-land, and in its habits 

 it does not differ materially from the bigger plains game 

 with which it associates. It is generally found where 

 there are no trees at all, but it does not object to the pres- 

 ence of the thinly scattered acacias which in Africa one 

 grows accustomed to associate with the sight of teeming 

 wild life. It is one of the numerous antelope which 

 never hide and never seek to escape observation. Its 

 coloring is conspicuous because of the vivid black lateral 

 stripe, and as its tail is twitching violently all the time, and, 

 as it never seeks cover, it never, when adult, eludes the 

 sight of any foe if the conditions are such that any animal 

 can be seen at all. The fawns, as is the case with the 

 young of all antelopes, and even of wild oxen, and probably 



