ANTELOPES. 



291 



westward of Lake Ngami it extends, however further north, reaching Benguela and 

 Angola on the west coast. According to Mr. Selous, this antelope is still found in 

 the north-west of the Cape Colony, and throughout the Transvaal and Griqualand 

 West ; while it is abundant on the borders of the Kalahari desert. The springbok 

 derives its name from its habit of suddenly leaping in the air ; and is remarkable 

 both for the vast numbers in which it formerly occurred, and for its periodical 

 migrations. Writing of one of these migrations, Gordon Cumming states that " for 

 about two hours before dawn I had been lying awake in my waggon, listening to 

 the grunting of the buck within 200 yards of me; imagining that some large 



THE SPRINGBOK (& nat. size). 



herd of springboks was feeding beside my camp, but, rising when it was light and 

 looking about me, I beheld the ground to the northward of my camp actually 

 covered with a dense living mass of springboks, marching slowly and steadily along. 

 They extended from an opening in a long range of hills on the west, through which 

 they continued pouring like the flood of some great river, to a ridge about a mile 

 to the north-east, over which they disappeared the breadth they covered might 

 have been somewhere about half a mile. I stood upon the fore-chest of my waggon 

 for nearly two hours, lost in astonishment at the novel and wonderful scene before 

 me, and had some difficulty in convincing myself that it was a reality which I 

 beheld, and not the wild and exaggerated picture of a hunter's dream. During this 



