Waller's Gazelle 



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species is the most numerous and most frequently met with. In appearance 

 it is the most bizarre and peculiar of all gazelles, the only one approaching 

 it in this respect being Clarke's gazelle {Ammodorcas clarkei), found south of 

 the Haud in Ogaden. 



Waller's gazelle has a very long neck, large eyes, lengthened muzzle, 

 with depressed nostrils and upper lips, and with a general shape of the face 

 not unlike that of a giraffe. The skull is very wide between the eyes, and 

 rapidly contracts to the nose, causing the head to appear, when viewed 

 from the front, in shape like a wedge. The body is moderately long and 

 narrow, and is mounted upon long, very slender legs, and terminates in a 

 short, slender, most insignificant tail. The hind part of the skull is greatly 

 extended, so that the horns are nearly midway between the tip of the nose 

 and the back of the head. In front of the eyes, filling up the orbital 

 vacuity, is a conspicuous prominence with a central aperture, from which 

 exudes a black secretion that stains everything it touches, in the same way 

 that ink does. Neither the skin, when removed from the animal, nor the 

 skull, affords any idea of the size of this singular prominence — in fact, there 

 is a cavity in the skull where it is situated, and artists who have attempted 

 to reproduce this species either in a drawing or by a model have failed 

 entirely to present the animal as it appears in life. The skin in front of 

 the eye has usually been laid perfectly flat, and coloured white. The only 

 other animals that I have met with which possess this prominence are 

 the dik-diks, and these, as regards their respective size, have it to an even 

 larger extent than Waller's gazelle. The face and expression of a dik-dik 

 is even more extraordinary and unusual than are those of the present 

 species. 



The gerenuk, as the natives call this gazelle, is not a graceful animal, 

 as may be imagined, either in figure or in its movements. It walks along 

 in a slouching kind of way, as though it were loose about the joints, and 

 when startled drops its head below the bushes and on a line with its body 



