"With Flashlight and Rifle -* 



The salt-plain becomes wilder and more desolate,, 

 and poorer in forms of animal life. Only some " crying 

 lapwings " follow us with their jerky flight, giving out 

 as they go their strange, soft, melancholy call. \Ye march 

 on for another hour, penetrating further and further into 

 the desert by the banks of the marsh ; suddenly, close in 

 front, there peers at us one of the magnificent, vividly 

 tinted saddle-billed storks (EphippiorhynchiLS senegaliiisis}, 

 which almost instantly seeks salvation in flight. Just 

 where the stork's powerful pinions have landed it in 

 safety, two little gazelles are frightened away from the 

 water ; they bound several times to right and left, and 

 then set off slowly, with measured pace, into the desert, 

 swaying lightlv to and fro. These are Thomson's gazelles 



/ O O * O 



(Craze/la tlioinsom}. They glance inquisitively over at 

 me ; from time to time they bend their heads as if to 

 eat, only to lift them quickly again. We can now discern 

 in the background, on the wide, level ground, a greater 

 number of these lovely brown creatures, with the pretty 

 black markings on their haunches. They let us get 

 much nearer them, but then, with their heads stiffly 

 raised, they move off, very soon breaking into a trot. 



Called to attention by the fugitive: Thomson's gazelles 

 the " goilin " of the Mas li there are now eyeing us a 

 number of their near relatives, the splendid Grant's gazelles. 

 Several females are grouped round a magnificent buck, 

 which is elecked with lyre-shaped, spreading horns a 

 foot anel a half long. These animals take: flight, too, 

 and, changing their direction frequently, form suddenly 

 into a half-circle round me anel my company, sej as to- 



568 



