THE PRIMEVAL FORESTS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 223 



pass within a few yards of most of the other mammals without 

 having any idea that they are near. The great majority of the 

 mammals inhabiting the primeval forest become active only after 

 sundown, and return to their lairs before daybreak; but even those 

 which are active and busy in full sunlight in the morning and 

 evening are by no means so easily seen as might be imagined, for 

 the thickness of the forest stands them in good stead. A European 

 with whom I hunted in the primeval forest said to me: "Did you 

 see that leopard that bounded from me towards you a few minutes 

 ago? I could not shoot for I had not my gun in order; but you 

 must have seen him." He was wrong; I had not seen the great 

 beast, so dense was the undergrowth in the forest. Where it is less 

 dense another fact has its importance: the colour -resemblance 

 between the mammals and their surroundings. The grayish lemur, 

 which sits or sleeps huddled up high up on a branch spun over with 

 lichens, resembles a knob or protuberance so clearly and convinc- 

 ingly that its form is only made out when the sportsman, taught 

 by former experience, uses his glass and observes it keenly; the bat, 

 which hangs high up in the crown of another tree, also looks like 

 an outgrowth or a withered leaf; even the spotted skin of the 

 leopard may be a faithful mimicry of the dry leaves and flowering 

 euphorbias, and I myself once had to advance with cocked rifle 

 to within fifteen paces of a bush in which a leopard had taken 

 shelter before I could distinguish the animal from his surroundings. 

 The same holds true of the forest antelopes, and indeed of all the 

 mammals, and they know that this is so. 54 Not everywhere, but 

 here and there throughout the forest, and then always abundantly, 

 there lives a little antelope, the bush or Salt's antelope. It is one of 

 the most charming of all ruminants, most gracefully built, not 

 bigger than a fawn a few days old, and of a foxy, gray-blue colour. 

 It lives with a mate in the thickest undergrowth of the forest, 

 choosing for its lair or habitual resting-place a bush which is 

 branched and leafy to the ground, and thence treading out narrow 

 paths in all directions through the thicket. I have often shot the 

 animal; but at first it escaped me as it e'scapes all the travellers and 

 sportsmen who make its acquaintance. I could never see it except 



