526 



AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



I was anxious to get a ewe of the saddle-back lechwe 

 for the museum, and landed in the late afternoon, on see- 

 ing a herd. The swamp was so deep that it took an hour's 

 very hard and fatiguing wading, forcing ourselves through 

 the rank grass up to our shoulders in water before we got 

 near them. The herd numbered about forty individuals; 



their broad trail 

 showed where they 

 had come through 

 the swamp, and 

 even through a 

 papyrus bed; but 

 we found them 

 grazing on merely 

 moist ground, 

 where there were 

 ant-hills in the long 

 grass. As I crept 

 up they saw me and 

 greeted me with a 

 chorus of croaking 

 grunts; they are a 

 very noisy buck. 

 I shot a ewe, and 

 away rushed the 

 herd through the 

 long grass, making 

 a noise which could 

 have been heard nearly a mile off, and splashing and 

 bounding through the shallow lagoons; they halted, and 

 again began grunting; and then off they rushed once more. 

 The doe's stomach was rilled with tender marsh grass. 

 Meanwhile, Kermit killed, on drier ground, a youngish 

 male of the white-eared kob. 



Next morning we were up at the Bahr el Zeraf. At ten 

 we sighted from the boat several herds of white-eared kob, 

 and Kermit and I went in different directions after them, 



Mr. Roosevelt with the Belseniceps rex, or whale-billed 



stork, at Lake No 

 From a photograph by Kermit Roosevelt 



