620 UNGULATA. 



the general dimness of the marking, and the dark brown streak on the 

 haunches. Several other species belong to the genus Gazella, among 

 which we may mention the Mohr of Western Africa, the Andra of 

 Northern Africa, and the Korin, or Kevel, of Senegal. 



THE SPRING-BOK. 



The SPRING-BOK, Gazella euchore (Plate XLVIII), is the representa- 

 tive of the genus in South Africa. It derives its name from its extraor- 

 dinary agility. It can rise to a height of seven or eight feet without any 

 difficulty, and can reach, on occasions, a height of twelve or thirteen 

 feet. It will never cross a road, if it can avoid doing so ; when forced, 

 it clears it at a bound. The color of the Spring-bok is a warm cinna- 

 mon-brown above, and pure white on the abdomen; a broad band of 

 reddish-brown parting the two colors. 



In the vast plains of Southern Africa, the Spring-bok roams in lit- 

 erally countless herds. " For two hours before the day dawned," 

 Gordon Cumming writes, " I had been lying awake listening to the 

 grunting of the bucks within two hundred yards of me. On rising and 

 looking about me, I beheld the ground to the northward actually 

 covered with a dense living mass of Spring-boks marching slowly and 

 steadily along, extending from an opening in a long range of hills on the 

 west, through which they poured 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. I stood upon the fore-chest of my wagon for nearly two 

 hours, lost in wonder at the novel and beautiful scene which was passing 

 before me, and had some difficulty in convincing myself that it was 

 reality which I beheld, and not the wild and exaggerated picture of a 

 hunter's dream. During this time, their vast legions continued stream- 

 ing through the neck in the hills, in one unbroken compact phalanx." 



The wonderful density of these moving herds may be imagined from 

 the fact, that a flock of sheep have been inextricably entangled among a 

 herd of migrating Spring-boks, and carried along with them without the 

 possibility of resistance or even of escape. Even the lion himself has 

 been thus taken prisoner in the midst of a mass of these animals, and has 

 been forced to move in their midst as if he belonged to their own order. 

 Want of water is said to be the principal cause of these migrations, for 



