140 ANIMAL LIFE IN AFRICA 



its pair of klipspringers. In these isolated habitats two 

 is the usual number seen together, a male and a female, 

 or the latter with her last year's offspring. Among the 

 larger hills and mountain ranges, however, it is not 

 uncommon to come across quite large parties of even 

 eight individuals collected where some unusually tempting 

 herbage offers itself ; but the fact that on being disturbed 

 they bound away in different directions shows that they 

 are not truly sociable animals. 



In localities where they are little disturbed, klip- 

 springers may be seen at all times of the day resting or 

 feeding beneath their rocky fastnesses, the shelter of 

 which they at once seek on the approach of danger, 

 bounding, head and neck erect, from boulder to boulder 

 with astonishing speed and incredible agility : now 

 momentarily balancing on one hoof, now springing, all 

 four feet held close together, on to the top of a pinnacle 

 of rock, of a surface area not much larger than half a 

 crown ; and so with never a stumble or a mistake, ever 

 upwards, until they disappear amid the stones and long 

 grass far up the hill, later perhaps to pause and gaze 

 back at the intruder from some well-hidden coign of 

 vantage. Often, as the wayfarer passes beneath some 

 towering crag, he may notice silhouetted against the sky- 

 line, hundreds of feet above his head, a compact little 

 form, the ears inquisitively cocked, and the nose extended 

 in his direction. As he lingers to obtain a better view, 

 or to pull out his field-glasses, he sees the animal, by a 

 springy and apparently effortless leap, clear some yawning 

 chasm, and bound with an easy nonchalance up a slope 

 which a man upon hands and knees could with difficulty 

 tackle. Whether on the boulder-clad hill-side or on the 

 level ground, the klipspringer progresses by a series of 

 jerky bounds, exactly as if his legs were set upon springs ; 



