342 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



or reeds. The kob, on the contrary, were always anxious 

 themselves to see round about, and, like waterbuck and 

 hartebeest, frequently used the ant-heaps as lookout sta- 

 tions. It was a pretty sight to see a herd of the bright red 

 creatures clustered on a big ant-hill, all the necks out- 

 stretched, and all the ears thrown forward. The females 

 are hornless. By the middle of November we noticed an 

 occasional new-born calf. 



The handsome, shaggy-coated, singsing waterbuck had 

 much the same habits as the kob. Like the kob they fed 

 at all hours of the day; but they were more wary and more 

 apt to be found in country where there were a good many 

 bushes or small trees. Waterbuck and kob sometimes asso- 

 ciated together. 



The best singsing bull I got I owed to Tarlton's good 

 eyesight and skill in tracking and stalking. The herd of 

 which he was master bull were shy, and took the alarm 

 just as we first saw them. Tarlton followed their trail for a 

 couple of miles, and then stalked them to an inch, by the 

 dextrous use of a couple of bushes and an ant-hill; the 

 ant-hill being reached after a two hundred yards' crawl, 

 first on all-fours and then flat on the ground, which re- 

 sulted in my getting a good off-hand shot at a hundred and 

 eighty yards. At this time, about the middle of November, 

 some of the cows had new-born calves. One day I shot a 

 hartebeest bull, with horns twenty-four inches long, as it 

 stood on the top of an ant-heap. On going up to it we 

 noticed something behind a little bush, sixty yards off. 

 We were puzzled what it could be, but finally made out a 

 waterbuck cow; and a minute or two later away she bounded 

 to safety, followed by a wee calf. The porters much ap- 





