THE GAZELLES AND THEIR ALLIES 605 



game. They do almost no damage to the settler, and they 

 are so easily protected that there can be no excuse for their 

 extermination or serious diminution. Any man or any 

 woman interested in natural history could easily make an 

 invaluable life study of these pretty and interesting little 

 gazelles, because their tameness, their accessibility, and 

 the nature of their haunts render it possible to study all 

 their actions continuously and minutely from day to day 

 throughout the seasons. Such a study, if serious and pro- 

 longed, and by a competent and interested observer, would 

 throw much light on many problems of animal psychology. 

 Most, although not all, of the plains game lead substan- 

 tially the same lives, and as a rule they are very simple 

 lives; but there are queer breaks in and exceptions to these 

 lives, and on some points the species differed widely from 

 one another, while in others the differences are individual 

 rather than specific; and we need to know both the general 

 rules of their conduct and, so far as possible, the explanations 

 for the seeming exceptions. 



The black-snouted Thomson gazelle is well character- 

 ized by its name. Besides this distinguishing character, 

 it may be recognized by its darker colored or blackish 

 facial stripes and by the more pronounced black pygal 

 stripe. The horns are usually distinguishable by their 

 wider spread and by their slightly greater length. The 

 differences in these dimensions average two inches more in 

 spread at the tips and one inch more in length compared to 

 the typical race. 



The coloration on the dorsal surface is a uniform cinna- 

 mon from the base of the tail to the nape. The lower sides 

 are marked by a broad black flank band extending from 

 the shoulder to the hind quarters, bordered below by the 

 white under-parts and above by a wide stripe of vina- 

 ceous-buff distinctly lighter than the cinnamon dorsal 



