CH. XI] THE GAIT OF ELANDS 287 



never showed a sign of having received any damage in 

 tlie encounter. I had always understood that the mon- 

 goose owed its safety to its agihty in avoiding the 

 snake's stroke, and 1 can offer no explanation of this 

 particular incident. 



There were eland on the high downs not far from 

 Meru, apparently as nuich at home in the wet, cold 

 climate as on the hot plains. Their favourite gait is the 

 trot. An elephant moves at a walk, or rather rack ; a 

 giraffe has a very peculiar leisurely-looking gallop, hotli 

 hind-legs coming forward nearly at the same time out- 

 side the fore-legs ; rhino and buffalo trot and run. 

 Eland, when alarr.ied, boimd with astonishing agility 

 for such large beasts — a trait not shown by other 

 large antelope, like oryx — and then gallop for a short 

 distance ; but the big bulls speedily begin to trot, and 

 the cows and younger bulls gradually also drop back 

 into the trot. In fact, their gaits are in essence those 

 of the wapiti, which also prefer the trot, although 

 wapiti never make the bounds that eland do at the 

 start. The moose, however, is more essentially a trotter 

 than either eland or wapiti. A very old and heavy 

 moose never, when at speed, goes at any other gait than 

 a trot, except that under the pressure of great and 

 sudden danger it may, perhaps, make a few bounds.^ 



While at jNIeru Boma I received a cable, forwarded 



^ A perfectly trustworthy Maine hunter informed nie that in the 

 spring he had once seen in the snow the marks where a bear had 

 sprung at two big moose, and they had bounded for several rods 

 before settHnij into the tremendous trot whicli is their normal gait 

 when startled. I have myself seen signs that showed where a young 

 moose had galloped for some rods under similar circumstances; 

 and I have seen big moose calves or half-grown moose in captivity 

 gallop a few yards in play, although rarely. But the normal, and 

 uniler ordinary circumstances the only, gait of the moose is the 

 trot. 



