CH. XI] SPECIES OF GAZEr.LE 291 



and the silver moonlight Hooding the reaches of dry 

 grass ; it Mas so bright that our shadows were almost 

 as black and clear-cut as in the day. On reaching 

 camp I would take a cup of tea m ith crackers or ginger- 

 snaps, and after a hot bath and a shave I was always 

 eager for dinner. 



Scattered over these flats were herds of zebra, oryx, 

 and gazelle. The gazelle, the most plentiful and much 

 the tamest of the game, were the northern form of the 

 Grant's gazelle, with straighter horns which represented 

 the opposite extreme when compared with the horns of 

 the Roberts" type which we got on the Sotik. They 

 seemed to me somewhat less in size than the big gazelle 

 of the Kapiti plains. One of the bucks I shot, an 

 adult of average size (I was not able to weigh my 

 biggest one), weighed one hundred and flfteen pounds ; 

 a very big true Grant's buck which 1 shot on the Kapiti 

 plains weighed one hundred and seventy-one pounds. 

 Doubtless there is complete intergradation, but the 

 Guaso Nyero form seemed slinnncr and lighter, and in 

 some respects seemed to tend toward the Somaliland 

 gazelles. I marked no difference in the habits, except 

 that these northern gazelle switched their tails more 

 jerkily, more like tommies, than was customary with 

 the true Grant's gazelles. But the difference may have 

 been in my observation. At any rate, the gazelles in 

 this neighbourhood, like those elsewhere, went in small 

 parties, or herds of thirty or forty individuals, on the 

 open plains or where there were a few scattered bushes, 

 and behaved like those in the Sotik, or on the Athi 

 plains. A near kinsman of the gazelle, the gerunuk, 

 a curious creature with a very long neck, which the 

 Swahilis call " little girafl'e," was scattered singly or in 

 small parties through the brush, and was as wild and 



