52 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



one heavy buck which I shot, although with poor horns, 

 weighed 171 pounds. The finest among the old bucks have 

 beautiful lyre-shaped horns, over two feet long, and their 

 proud, graceful carriage and lightness of movement render 

 them a delight to the eye. As I have already said, the 

 young and the females have the dark side stripe which 

 marks all the tommies; but the old bucks lack this, and 

 their color fades into the brown or sandy of the dry plains 

 far more completely than is the case with zebra or kongoni. 

 Like the other game of the plains they are sometimes found 

 in small parties, or else in fair-sized herds, by themselves, 

 and sometimes with other beasts; I have seen a single fine 

 buck in a herd of several hundred zebra and kongoni. The 

 Thomson's gazelles, hardly a third the weight of their 

 larger kinsfolk, are found scattered everywhere; they are 

 not as highly gregarious as the zebra and kongoni, and are 

 not found in such big herds; but their little bands now a 

 buck and several does, now a couple of does with their 

 fawns, now three or four bucks together, now a score of 

 individuals are scattered everywhere on the flats. Like 

 the Grants, their flesh is delicious, and they seem to have 

 much the same habits. But they have one very marked 

 characteristic: their tails keep up an incessant nervous 

 twitching, never being still for more than a few seconds at 

 a time, while the larger gazelle in this part of its range 

 rarely moves its tail at all. They are grazers and they 

 feed, rest, and go to water at irregular times, or at least 

 at different times in different localities; and although they 

 are most apt to rest during the heat of the day, I have 

 seen them get up soon after noon, having lain down for a 

 couple of hours, feed for an hour or so, and then lie down 



