CH. ii] SMALLER ANTELOPES 55 



ing at a wounded animal as long as there is the least 

 chance of its getting off. The expenditure of a few 

 cartridges is of no consequence whatc\ cr compared to 

 the escape of a single head of game which should have 

 been bagged. Sliooting at long range necessitates 

 much rinming. Some of my successful shots at Grants 

 gazelle and kongoni were made at 300. 3.50, and 400 

 yards ; but at such distances my proportion of misses 

 was \ cry large indeed — and there were altogether too 

 many even at shorter ranges. 



The so-called grass antelopes, the steinbuck and 

 duyker, were the ones at which I shot worst. They were 

 quite plentiful, and they got up close, seeking to escape 

 observation by hiding until the last moment ; but they 

 were small, and when they did go tliey rushed half- 

 hidden through the grass and in and out among the 

 bushes at such a speed, and with such jumps and twists 

 and turns, that 1 foimd it wellnigh impossible to hit 

 them with the rifle. The few I got were generally shot 

 when they happened to stand still. 



On the steep, rocky, bush-clad hills there were little 

 klipspringers and the mountain reedbuck, or Chanler's 

 reedbuck, a very pretty little creature. Usually we 

 found the reedbuck does and their fawns in small 

 parties, and the bucks by themselves ; but we saw too 

 few to enable us to tell whether this represented their 

 normal habits. They fed on the grass, the hill plants, 

 and the tips of certain of the shrubs, and were true 

 mountaineers in their love of the rocks and rough 

 ground, to which they fled in frantic haste when 

 alarmed. They were shy and elusive little things, but 

 not wary in the sense that some of the larger antelopes 

 are wary. I shot two does with three bullets, all of 

 which hit. Then I tried hard for a buck ; at last, late 

 one evening, 1 got up to one feeding on a steep hillside, 



