HABITAT OF SPRINGBOK— SIZE OF 

 AFRICAN OTTERS. 



A VALUABLE correspondent, and former hunting 

 companion on the veldt, makes some inquiries about 

 the above animals, which he will thank me to answer. 



The habitat of the springbok has never to my 

 knowledge been defined, although the usual belief 

 is that it confines itself to '• the desert," or to such 

 countries as lay upon its i;Timediate margin. This, 

 however, is an error, for J have seen this beautiful 

 creature close to Bedford and Craddock, Eastern 

 Province, Old Colony ; and certainly, to reach the 

 first-named, it had passed through belts of bush and 

 timber, formerly giraffe country, and very unlike its 

 home on the Kalihari or the Karroo district. 



Again^ I have found the springbok in the Map- 

 pani bush country, considerably to the eastward of 

 Kama's possessions, and even in tolerably thick- 

 wooded lands in the same " march," a section of terri- 

 tory at one time justly celebrated for the large num- 

 bers of giraffes that frequented it. When the natives 

 make drives there — far from an unfrequent occur- 

 rence — all varieties of game that are started before 

 the beaters crowd together, and the same not un- 

 frequently occurs when riding down the larger boks 

 and giraffes, until the individual you intend to kill is 

 severed from them, and among these crowds the 

 springbok is frequently found. 



Again, the giraffe is found in " the desert," where 

 irees are scarce, and the principal part of the sus- 

 tenance of these mammoths of creation is cropped 

 from bushes seldom over three feet high. There, 



