2 76 ANTELOPES 



the animal sneaks away. As a rule, a gerenuk does not go very far, 

 and I never saw one that I could not have eventually secured. It 

 only required the exercise of a little time and patience, and an 

 approach to a fair shooting distance could certainly be gained. 



" I consider the gerenuk a rather stupid creature, as it does not 

 seem to possess the wariness, watchfulness, and general ability to 

 protect itself from danger which are the attributes of other antelopes. 

 If it can only hide behind the bushes it seems to think it unnecessary 

 to remove itself far from threatened danger. 



" The meat is poor and, like the flesh of all other game animals 

 in East Africa, without a particle of fat, and consequently dry and 

 tasteless. Only a few of the natives will eat it, as they consider the 

 animal, with its depressed nostrils and large eyes, looks too much like 

 a camel, and believe that if they eat it a sickness of some kind will 

 carry off their camels. To this superstition the gerenuk owes an 

 immunity from native persecution — at least from all save the Midgans, 

 who eat almost everything they can kill. 



" So far as my own observation goes, gerenuk are never seen on the 

 treeless plains, such as those of the Haud, the Morar-prairie, and the 

 like, but resort to hill-sides and summits, which are often barren, but 

 have valleys between them covered with thick thorn-forests. It may 

 be that when they have been seen on open places, they were merely 

 passing from one valley to another. 



" The usual gait of this gazelle is a slouching trot, with the head 

 and neck carried very low, on a level with the body. When really 

 frightened, it gallops with considerable speed ; stopping, however, at 

 intervals to look back at the object of its alarm. If at such times 

 the hunter is concealed, the gerenuk soon forgets its fears and 

 commences to feed or resume its slow careless walk. 



" Certain individuals of this species, of both sexes, have on each 

 side of the face a white stripe running from the eye often to the end 

 of the nose, resembling very much the markings of Clarke's gazelle. 

 This was particularly the case with animals shot south of the Togo 

 plain, where it was seldom one was obtained without this distinguishing 

 character. I was impressed with this peculiarity, and inclined to 

 regard it as of some distinctive value, and should have so deemed it, 

 had I not found occasionally individuals in the country north of Togo 

 possessing a similar stripe, but of less extent and less clearly defined. 

 When plainly exhibited, it gives the head of the gerenuk a close 

 resemblance to that of Clarke's gazelle, as both are similarly shaped, 

 being very narrow and pointed. Taking the extremes of the twO' 



