392 LARGE GAME. CHAP. vin. 



the hornless does, while it partially conceals the small 

 horns of the bucks. Its flesh is anything but good, and 

 it is difficult to shoot from the tremendous rushes it 

 makes when disturbed. So fast and heedlessly does it 

 run, that I once saw a buck that had passed me while I 

 was loading entangle itself in a mass of creepers, from 

 which, despite its struggles, it was unable to escape until 

 I released it with the help of my knife. It was quite 

 uninjured, and I kept it in confinement for some weeks, 

 but, like most antelopes when caught full-grown, it ulti- 

 mately pined away and died. 



Of all game found in Africa, the little blue buck, or 

 Pete (Perpusilla), is the most common ; and it is very 

 doubtful whether they have even decreased in numbers, 

 as most of the jungles on the coast of Natal are perfectly 

 alive with them, despite the way in which they have 

 been shot down by the whites and extirpated by the 

 immense native hunting parties. 



It is, I suppose, the smallest antelope in the world, 

 being considerably less as well as much lighter than 

 a hare, and it is a beautiful little animal, its colour 

 being a bluish mouse, and having tiny straight horns 

 scarcely peeping over the little tuft of hair on its fore- 

 head, while it has the most graceful and delicate limbs 

 imaginable. It feeds principally on certain berries and 

 shrubs found growing in the jungles, and seems to be on 

 the move, more or less, the whole day, though, in common 

 with the rest of the animal creation, it is most often to 

 be seen at early morning and evening. 



Perhaps the most enjoyable method of hunting them 

 is to steal about in the dense jungle noiselessly, of 



