THE BIG GAME OF AFRICA 



off. A good horse is, as a rule, able to keep pace with, and 

 even overtake, an average eland, if the ground is not too 

 rough, the cows being better runners than the bulls. 



A full-grown bull eland stands as high as five feet 

 eight inches and more over the shoulders, while the mighty 

 horns, spherically twisted, and with a sharp ridge running 

 along almost to the tip, sometimes measure thirty inches. 

 This animal is one of the few large antelopes among which 

 the females also carry horns, although these are generally a 

 great deal thinner than those of the bulls and have the 

 ridges much less marked, but in length the horns of a cow 

 may far exceed those of any male. 



The color of the skin of the young eland is a reddish 

 chestnut, and is often marked with well-defined, white 

 stripes, which run down along the sides from a dark brown 

 band on the back. Old bulls very often turn to a dark 

 slate-color, sometimes appearing grayish blue. Both males 

 and females carry large dewlaps, and particularly the males 

 develop a large quantity of dark brown, bushy hair on the 

 forehead, below the horns. The eland feeds, as a rule, in 

 small bands of from ten to twenty, but after the close 

 of the dry season much larger herds may be seen, often 

 coming down to water holes on the plains. Single bulls, 

 roaming around alone far from the herd, as in the case 

 of elephants, rhinos, and giraffes, are rarely encountered. 



As already stated, it is exceedingly hard to get up close 

 to a herd of eland, for if a single animal detects the hunter, 

 it seems to be able quickly and intelligently to communicate 

 " the news " to the rest of the band. I found several times, 

 when stalking small herds of eland, that if only a single 

 animal could for a moment see me, the whole herd would 



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