16 PERIODICAL MIGRATIONS 



attraction in time. However this may be, I do 

 not think that the migratory habits so character- 

 istic of the varieties I have mentioned are shared 

 at all by the waterbuck and zebras, and not to 

 anything like the same extent by the gnus and 

 the hartebeestes. Still, I have observed, in the case 

 of the gnus, a tendency to desert wide expanses 

 of country for considerable periods of time, and 

 to reappear long afterwards when their presence 

 was quite unexpected. The kudu is not suffi- 

 ciently numerous in any portion of the country 

 with which we are dealing to enable an opinion 

 to be formed as to his habits in this regard, whilst 

 the continuous presence of the smaller antelopes 

 in districts favourable to their well-being gives 

 ground for the supposition that they, at any rate, 

 are seldom seized with roving desires. 



Before completing this chapter I would say a 

 few words regarding the salutary measures which 

 have been adopted in certain British colonies in 

 Africa with a view to checking the wholesale 

 heartless destruction of game beasts which has 

 been carried on for so many years, chiefly by a 

 certain class who make a scandalous and un- 

 necessary living by preserving the flesh of their 

 victims and selling it in the form of what they 

 call " biltong." In the Transvaal and else- 

 where, I am informed, this disgraceful pursuit 

 has been properly and sternly repressed, and it 

 is in the earnest hope that my words may extend 

 this repression to Portuguese territory, and in- 

 deed assist in making it universal, that these lines 

 are penned. The immature male and the female 



