THE ANTELOPES AND GAZELLES 173 



used. Harriers are sometimes employed. The buck 

 are, of course, driven down wind. The bushbuck 

 ram, which alone carries horns, is a most plucky beast, 

 and will charge furiously when wounded or at bay. 

 With its sharp, strong, straight horns it can inflict 

 severe injuries, and on one or two occasions fatal 

 accidents have happened with this antelope. Stalking 

 bushbuck at early morning or late evening, as they 

 come outside the denser bush to feed on the young 

 grass, is excellent sport. These buck are very con- 

 servative in their habits, and will repeatedly appear 

 in the same spots day after day ; and the gunner, 

 wandering along the edge of the bush or forest with 

 a small-bore rifle (.303 or .256), can often obtain 

 some very pretty shooting with them. The direction 

 of the wind is, of course, to be remembered, and the 

 greatest quiet and precaution must be observed. The 

 sport much resembles the rabbit-stalking of one's 

 younger days, when one prowled with a shot-gun 

 along hedgerows and patches of gorse. 



The Cape bushbuck ram is dark brown in colour, 

 with or without faint white stripes over the back and 

 loins and a few spots upon the flanks and quarters. 

 The Western bushbuck, found in West Central and 

 South Central Africa, is of a bright red, profusely 

 spotted on the shoulders, sides, and haunches, and 

 bearing well-defined, white, transverse stripes. The 

 ewes, which are hornless, are, as a rule, of a more 

 yellowish-red colouring, with fainter stripings. In 

 the Abyssinian race the colour is reddish-brown, with 

 from six to seven white transverse stripes. The 



