ELEPHANT HUNTING 



275 



making long hops or jumps, they often run almost like an 

 ordinary rat or rabbit. They are pretty creatures, fawn- 

 colored above, and white beneath, with the terminal half 

 of the tail very dark. In hunting them we simply walked 

 over the flats for a couple of hours, flashing the bull's-eye 

 lantern on all sides, 

 until we saw the light 

 reflected back by a 

 springhaas's eyes. 

 Then I would ap- 

 proach to within 

 range, and hold the 

 lantern in my left 

 hand so as to shine 

 both on the sight 



o 



and on the eyes in 

 front, resting my gun 

 on my left wrist. 

 The number 3 shot, 

 in the Fox double- 

 barrel, would always 

 do the business, if I 



held straight enough. There was nothing but the gleam of 

 the eyes to shoot at; and this might suddenly be raised or 

 lowered as the intently watching animal crouched on all- 

 fours or raised itself on its hind legs. I shot half a dozen, 

 all that the naturalists wanted. Then I tried to shoot a 

 fox; but the moon had risen from behind a cloud bank; I 

 had to take a long shot and missed; but my companions 

 killed several, and found that they were a new species of 

 the peculiar African long-eared fox. 



While waiting for the safari to get ready, Kermit went 

 off on a camping trip and shot two bushbuck, while I spent 

 a couple of days trying for singsing waterbuck on the edge of 

 the papyrus. I missed a bull, and wounded another which I 

 did not get. This was all the more exasperating because 

 interspersed with the misses were some good shots: I killed 



A waterbuck 

 From a photograph by Kermit Roosevelt 



