198 NEIGHBORS WITH CLAWS AND HOOFS. 



inhabit the vast continent of Africa, through which they 

 roam in prodigious herds that sometimes appear innumer- 

 able, and where they constitute the ordinary prey of the 

 lion and the panther. Nevertheless, when attacked they 

 are not without some means of defense. Under such cir- 

 cumstances, if there is time for such a manoeuvre, arrang- 

 ing themselves in a circular phalanx they present their 

 formidable horns, disposed as thickly as the bayonets of a 

 regiment of soldiers, and when thus disposed their array 

 is not easily broken." 



7. "As the traveler advances from the Cape toward 

 the Sahara, he constantly falls in with new antelopes, and 

 many unknown to the naturalist, no doubt, will still roam 

 in the undiscovered interior of the continent. With the 

 exception of the ox or cow-like species, such as the eland, 

 whose clumsier proportions and heavier gait remind one 

 of our domestic cattle, the antelopes generally resemble 

 the deer tribe by their elegant forms, their restless and 

 timid disposition, and their proverbial swiftness. Their 

 horns, whatever shape they assume, are round and annu- 

 lated, in some species straight, in others curved and spiral. 

 In some the females have no horns ; in others they are 

 common to both sexes. They all possess a most delicate 

 sense of smell, and their eyes are proverbially bright and 

 beaming. The largest of all the antelope tribe is the 

 bubale, or wild ox of the Arabs. 



8. " Few of the numerous African antelopes are more 

 entitled to our notice than the graceful spring-bok, which 

 has earned its name from the surprising and almost per- 

 pendicular leaps it makes when startled. It bounds to the 

 height of ten or twelve feet with the elasticity of an India- 

 rubber ball, clearing at each leap from twelve to fifteen 

 feet of ground without apparently the slightest exertion. 

 In performing this astonishing leap, it appears for an in- 



