The Gazelles 343 



This is a wonderfully tough animal to kill, and a springbuck will go far, 

 even with three bullets through him, if the missiles are badly placed. 

 One buck I shot had only three legs, the other having apparently been 

 shot off a long time previously ; the animal had quite recovered from its 

 wound, and the flesh had grown over in a large lump at the end of the 

 5tum P' G. W. Pf.nrice. 



THE GAZELLES 



Genus Gazella 



The elegant little antelopes commonly known (from the Arabic name 

 of one of the species) as gazelles are so familiar to all and so similar to one 

 another, that they are one of the easiest groups to recognise. Lacking a 

 fold of skin in the back, and with six pairs of lower cheek-teeth, they have 

 a neck of average length, and horns (in the African species common to 

 both sexes) with the basal three-fourths of their length convex in front. 

 Generally the colour is sandy above and white below, and in all the African 

 species the face is marked with longitudinal dark and light streaks. Tufts 

 of hair are usually developed on the knees, and the tail in the African 

 forms is of medium length. In all the latter glands are present on the 

 face, and corresponding depressions for their reception in the skull below 

 the sockets of the eyes. In the bucks the horns are stout, boldly ridged, 

 and in most cases, though not all, not much longer than the head, the 

 tips being generally more or less curved forwards or outwards, but 

 occasionally inwards ; in the does they are shorter, straighter, more 

 slender, and display less constancy of form in the individual species. 

 Gazelles which are common to a large portion of Asia and the more open 

 districts of Africa, include a very large number of species, of which the 

 following fifteen are African. 



