THE ANTELOPES AND GAZELLES 175 



common duyker (Ce-p halo-pus grimmi] is best known. 

 Duyker is a Cape Dutch name, signifying " diver " or 

 "ducker," and very well expresses the furtive, sneaking 

 habits of this small antelope. Found all over South 

 Africa, from the Cape to the Zambesi, its range 

 extends in the west to Angola and in the east as far 

 north even as Somaliland. No matter where one 

 goes, so long as bush and covert are available, the 

 duyker is pretty sure to be met with. It is not, like 

 the bushbuck, a lover of the densest thickets and 

 jungle, but prefers, rather, fairly open country clothed 

 with scattered bush. In mountain districts I have met 

 with and shot this antelope among the well -bushed 

 kloofs and ravines, always in the bottoms of the 

 valleys. It ranges singly or in pairs, and, lying con- 

 cealed in bush or long grass, will often spring up 

 from under the very feet of the hunter. Usually, 

 however, it endeavours to creep away under cover of 

 the bush, or plunges into the depths of the thicket 

 and thorn jungle. These animals are practically 

 independent of water, and I have met with them in 

 the wildest and most waterless recesses of the dry 

 Kalahari country, fat, and in good condition, in the 

 same locality as eland, gemsbok, and giraffe. 



As often as not, duyker are secured with the shot- 

 gun ; and most South African gunners, when out for a 

 long day's game-bird shooting, will recall the bagging 

 of one or more of these small antelope, when walking 

 up francolin or bustard or guinea-fowl. They are 

 fleet little buck, and stand very well before foxhounds, 

 and, with the Bechuanaland hounds, when Sir Frederick 



