104 ANIMAL LIFE IN AFRICA 



ciently thick and their favourite herbs abundant : here 

 an old male with his fifteen or twenty wives ; there a 

 band of half a dozen young rams. At this period the 

 necessity of drinking often, so characteristic in the dry 

 season, is less pressing. The long grass and herbage of 

 all kinds is frequently soaked with rain, while at other 

 times the heavy nightly dews keep it wet up to nearly 

 midday. This moisture apparently largely suffices for 

 the animals' needs, and their spoor in the neighbourhood 

 of big forest pools is seldom evident until the last showers 

 have fallen. During the summer each troop will be 

 found in its own particular section of country, which it 

 leaves only when food becomes short or the time arrives 

 for the annual migration to the river-banks. The first 

 rainy day of the season is a joyous one for the impala. 

 As the heavy clouds roll up and the air becomes dense 

 with moisture, the bush for miles resounds with the deep 

 and continuous grunting of the rams, their song of thanks 

 to kindly nature. At the descent of the first drop, 

 every buck leaves the river, to be seen no more in its 

 immediate vicinity for a period of seven months. 



Clinging always more or less to the neighbourhood of 

 dense thorn bush, to which they at once flee if surprised 

 in the open, it is not surprising that the impala's food 

 consists largely of leaves and shoots. Though eating 

 grass freely, especially when it is young and tender after 

 the early rains, he is more partial to browsing than to 

 grazing. The staple diet is the leaves and fruit of certain 

 acacias. Some of the latter appears to be exceedingly 

 nourishing and fattening, and when it is in season impala 

 will hardly look at anything else. The leaves of most 

 of the wait-a-bit and other thorn trees also receive 

 attention, and the softer shoots and twigs are likewise 

 nibbled. About March the fallen apples of the marula 



