THE SABLE ANTELOPE 111 



awhile to observe them. At length, espying a 

 good bull, the only one so far as I could see 

 with them, I fired and shot him, feeling some- 

 what regretful as I did so at dissipating so pretty 

 a picture. At the sound of my rifle the scattered 

 assemblage, after one moment of stupefied alarm, 

 drew together some forty strong, and, entirely 

 ignorant of the direction in which danger lay; 

 they swept in a bounding gallop directly towards 

 me. Unwilling as I was to fire again, I stood 

 up on the tree-trunk and shouted, waving my 

 hat in full view when they were not more than 

 40 yards from me, and watched them wheel 

 off to my right and disappear, a bewilderingly 

 beautiful and graceful spectacle of the African 

 woodlands. 



Sable antelope are not difficult to approach. 

 If feeding, and the wind be favourable, they are 

 stalked more easily than many other game beasts 

 of my acquaintance. The only difiiculty which 

 presents itself is the embarrassing habit a herd 

 of these animals has of spreading itself out over 

 a large area. They divide themselves into twos 

 and threes, and great care must be exercised to 

 make sure that in drawing near to one group 

 the suspicions of others, perhaps invisible to the 

 crawling sportsman, should not be aroused. 

 When it is remembered that there is often only 

 one good bidl with each herd, and that he 

 usually feeds and remains somewhat apart from 

 it, the difficulty of securing good heads wiU be 

 readily appreciated. But where these animals 

 are numerous, single males are at times met with, 



