320 Great and Small Game of Africa 



adult ram stands 2 feet 7 inches at the shoulder ; a ewe 2 feet 4 inches. 

 The horns (absent in the female) average 6 inches in length ; a pair of 

 1 1 inches is recorded. In the rutting season the rams utter a deep guttural 

 note during the night, but their ordinary call of alarm is a sharp coughing 

 snort. 



Although a mountain-loving antelope, its habitat is by no means so 

 strictly confined to the range-summits as has been stated. Only a few years 

 since, they were common on the middle and lower terraces of the Drakens- 

 berg Mountains, East Transvaal. The tropic of Capricorn is about their 

 northern limit. Up till quite recently they existed in great numbers in 

 the Eastern Transvaal, and are still numerous ; their range also extends from 

 the middle and south-eastern districts of the Cape Colony, through the 

 Free State, Bechuanaland, Natal, Zululand, and parts of Matabeleland. 

 On the lower terraces they lie up during the day amongst out-cropping 

 rocks or patches of bracken, while on the mountains they lie among the 

 stones or in little gullies on the sheltered slopes, or on open stony table- 

 lands. At night they descend to lower ground to drink, and to feed about 

 in the sheltered hollows, making their way back to higher ground at sun- 

 rise. They are grass-feeders, and their flesh is poor. During very dry 

 weather they are attacked by bot-fly larva-, which burrow under the skin of 

 the back, and raise unsightly excrescences, which are anything but appetite- 

 inducing. Rhebuck associate in pairs, or in herds of six or eight to fifteen 

 or twenty in number ; occasionally old rams lead a solitary life. Their 

 activity is boundless, and their energy untiring, and, though presenting a 

 somewhat stilty appearance when at rest, they quickly undeceive the 

 observer when they start to run. Their brown -gray fawns are born 

 between mid-November and Christmas, and are always skilfully hidden by 

 their dams in patches of grass amongst the boulders. When they are very 

 small the ewes feed near at hand, and will permit an intruder to approach 

 much nearer than would otherwise be the case. 



