CHAP. vni. ANECDOTES OF ANTELOPES. 403 



especially of the male sex, are somewhat rank, though I 

 have frequently eaten and enjoyed young does. They 

 should be roasted like a sucking-pig, the bristles scalded 

 off, and the skin, which is the best part, allowed to 

 remain. They do not form burrows of their own ; but 

 when forced out of the thick tangle of overgrown grass or 

 reeds in which they lie a task by no means easy of 

 accomplishment, they take refuge in any hole or crevice 

 among rocks or stones, or in the deserted burrows of the 

 ant-eater or porcupine. They are, as I have said, not 

 only destructive to a degree among sugar-cane, gnawing 

 down stem after stem, but most difficult to extirpate, so 

 much so that on many plantations 6d. or even Is. per 

 head is offered for every one killed. In spots such as 

 these they live in what fields happen to be lying fallow, 

 and which, being covered with an impenetrable thicket of 

 grass and weeds, offer them a secure retreat from which 

 they can nightly issue forth into the canes. It so hap- 

 pened that I had a tiny little smooth terrier, whose great 

 delight was hunting these brutes ; and as from his size 

 he was able to follow them through the runs they made 

 under the grass, he was most effective in forcing them 

 out, sometimes succeeding in a few minutes after half-a- 

 dozen larger dogs and a lot of men had tried for hours in 

 vain. The consequence was that wherever cane-rats were 

 doing mischief in my neighbourhood, whether in a native 

 maize-garden or in a sugar-plantation, a petition came for 

 the loan of my dog, and when I had nothing better to 

 do I often accompanied it. 



When it was to a plantation that I went where the 

 damage done had become serious, and the planter had in 

 consequence vowed destruction to the whole race, I gene- 



