THE SPRING-BOK. 



639 



rising to a height of seven or eight feet without any difficulty, and being capable on 

 occasions of reaching to a height of twelve or thirteen feet. When leaping, the back 

 is greatly curved, and the creature presents a very curious aspect, owing to the sud- 

 den exhibition of the long white hairs that cover the croup, and are nearly hidden by 

 a fold of skin when the creature is at rest, but which come boldly into view as soon as 

 the protecting skin-fold is obliterated by the tension of the muscles that serve to pro- 

 pel the animal in its aerial course. 



The Spring-bok is a marvellously timid animal, and will never cross a road if it can 

 avoid the necessity. When it is forced to do so, it often compromises the difficulty by 

 leaping over the spot which has been tainted by the foot of man. The color of the 

 Spring-bok is very pleasing, the ground tinting being a warm cinnamon-brown upon the 

 upper surface of the body, and pure white upon the abdomen, the two colors being 

 separated from each other by a broad band of reddish-brown. The flesh of the 

 Spring-bok is held in some estimation, and the hide is in great request for many use- 

 ful purposes. 



SPRMG-BOK.-Antidorcas Euchore. 



Inhabiting the vast plains of Southern Africa, the Spring-bok is accustomed to make 

 pilgrimages from one spot to another, vast herds being led by their chiefs, and ravaging 

 the country over which they pass as if they were quadrupedal and mammalian locusts. 

 Thousands upon thousands unite in these strange pilgrimages, or " trek-bokken," as 

 they .are called by the Boers, and some faint idea of the moving multitudes that traverse 

 the country may be obtained from the following description, written by Captain Gum- 

 ming immediately after witnessing one of these migrations. 



11 For about two hours before the day dawned, I had been lying awake in my wagon, 

 listening to the grunting of the bucks within two hundred yards of me, imagining that 

 some large herd of Spring-boks was feeding beside my camp. But on my rising when it 

 was clear, and looking about me, I beheld the ground to the northward of my camp 

 actually covered with a dense living mass of Spring-boks, inarching slowly and steadily 

 along, extending 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 

 east, over which they disappeared. The breadth of the ground they covered might have 

 been somewhere about half a mile. 



