With Flashlight and Rifle -^ 



in British East Africa which had succumbed to this 

 terrible plague in 1891, as Mr. F. G. Jackson records in 

 the Badminton Library. 



Lesser Rudus are to be found in small herds, consisting 

 of a single buck and a few females. During the day they 

 rest, going out to graze in the morning and in the evening. 

 Often they will allow you to come right up to them, and 

 then, taking to Hight, make oft at a tremendous pace, and 

 you will never see them again. 1 spent a long time trying 

 to get a good picture of these antelopes, but the only 

 o^ood one which I took was spoilt through a succession ot 

 mishaps. As they generally take up their stand in the 

 shade of the trees and bushes, and are seldom to be seen 

 out in the sun, it is very difhcult to photograph them. 

 On one occasion, when I came upon a fine specimen ot 

 a lesser kudu buck raising his head proudly about eighty 

 paces away from me, my hand shook, and the picture 

 which I took with my telephoto-lens was spoilt. The 

 kudu which made its appearance upon the negative 

 presented only a very blurred resemblance to the original. 



I found that the horns of the old bucks were very much 

 broken and decayed ; you would think they had been 

 lying out for quite a long time on the desert when found. 

 The lesser kudu very often falls a victim to leopards ; 

 I have seen bits of them hanging upon trees. In the 

 driest seasons kudus feed largely upon " bowstring " 

 hemp ; I have sometimes found their stomachs completely 

 filled with the long fibres of these plants. 



The largest and most powerful antelope ot all in 

 Africa, the eland {^Tanrotragus liviugstonci). has something 



474 



