-^ The Antelopes of East Africa 



steely elasticity, wonderfully vigorous beauty^ — all are 

 here combined in one small compass. 



Timid and pretty, the impalla-antelopes are extremely 

 cautious also, and the alarm-note of the bucks is heard 

 as often by day as by night. I found young impalla- 

 antelopes in December ; their mothers remained near 

 the large herd. 



The impallas like particularly the freshly sprung 

 young grass, and manage to discover this even from 

 great distances. They frequently alter their habitat. 

 During the driest part of the year they keep in the 

 closest proximity to the streams and brooks, where they 

 may always be found in the hollows where fresh grass 

 is growing. The natives know this, so they burn little 

 tracts of the velt in order that the young grass may 

 spring up on them. The antelopes will come hurrying 

 to these from afar, and many of the pretty creatures are 

 shot in this way amongst the half-charred solanum- 

 bushes upon the blackly burnt soil of the velt. 



In the autumn of the year 1899 I observed, in the 

 middle of a herd of about two hundred impallas, by 

 the Mto-Kyaki at Kilimanjaro, a perfectly white female 

 specimen. I succeeded, to my great delight, in killing 

 this specimen, after much stalking, rendered especially 

 difficult by the watchfulness and numbers of the others. 

 The following-up was made laborious by the almost 

 impenetrable " bowstring " hemp thickets which cover the 

 low-lying land near this stream. It was only after the third 

 bullet that I actually got hold of the longed-for animal, 

 and then I saw that she was pregnant with a male young 



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