Wild Beasts and their Ways 139 
The general characteristics of the gazelle family, including all the aberrant forms 
mentioned, are as follows: with the exception of Saiga there are only -two mamme; the 
‘muzzle is invariably hairy (v.e., there is no naked wet nose and. muffle); in the true 
gazelles, and im a slight degree in the saiga, the horns are curved backwards and then 
slightly forwards towards the tip, and are more or less lyre-shaped-in them arrangement; 
that is to say, that the recurved tips very often face each other. The females in most 
of the aberrant types are hornless, but in all but four species of the true gazelles bear 
horns, in which case, however, the horns are far smaller and slighter than those of the 
male, and are sometimes quite straight and upright as in the neotragines. Of the true 
gazelles there are something like twenty-five distinct species, which range in their present 
distribution from Western China and Tibet across India, Persia, Syria, and Arabia to 
North Africa, and thence over all parts of the contiment with the exception of the well 
forested regions. In the African distribution of the gazelles there is in fact a somewhat 
remarkable blank. No true gazelle is found anywhere in the forest regions of West or 
Central Africa or south of German East Africa; that is to say, there is no true 
gazelle on the West Coast of Africa south of the Gambia, nor in the whole 
of the Congo Basin, Angola, Zambezia, Nyasaland, or South Africa. Yet the range 
of the gazelles must once have overstepped these limits; for a form of true gazelle reached 
South Africa from the north, and there became specialized south of the Zambezi into the 
well known springbuck, which is somewhat unnecessarily made into a separate genus 
under the name of Antidorcas. The springbuck has lost a premolar tooth, and has 
developed along its back a peculiar long, evertible fold of skin which it can open at 
will, thereby displaying an extraordinary blaze of white under-fur all up the back. Its 
tail is rather long for a gazelle, but im horns and in characteristic face and body 
markings it agrees with the true gazelles. The springbuck at one time was found in 
uncountable myriads in ‘Africa south of the Zambezi. It is a lovely creature, with 
its pure white belly, back, imsides of the limbs, throat, face, and ears, the rest of 
its pelage beimg reddish-yellow with a broad black band along the flanks, separating 
the golden upper parts from the snowy-white belly. There is also a broad blackish- 
brown streak (so characteristic of the gazelles) from the base of the horns over the 
eyelids, along the side of the face to the corner of the mouth. The extraordinary 
leaps of the springbuck and the appearance of the vast herds in which it travels have 
been admirably illustrated by 
Mr. J. G. Millais in a “A 
Breath from the Veldt.” ‘eo 
Specially remarkable a ae 
gazelles are the Grant's » Fai a 
Gazelle (the largest animal = 
of the sub-family, with 
very long horns), the 
brightly coloured Thomson’s 
Gazelle, the long - horned 
loder’s Gazelle of North 
Africa, Speke’s Gazelle with 
its ribbed nose, and the big 
and handsome Soemmering’s 
Gazelle (with its large and 
very lyrate horns and grey 
muzzle). In Somaliland and 
the eastern horn of Africa 
the gazelles haye developed 
Smith, sq. 
THOMSON'S GAZELLE. 
