154 THE IMPALA 



stand irresolute, looking this way and that, some 

 of the younger animals, for no apparent reason, 

 bounding high into the air. If the hunter remain 

 hidden, several shots could be fired before the 

 animals appear to realise what has happened to 

 them, when, uttering a loud bark, not unlike that 

 of the bushbuck, they stream away, leaping 

 again and again ten and twelve feet into the air 

 with a marvellous, elastic, bird-like bound which 

 betrays a power such as probably no other animal 

 in the world possesses in equal degree. Having 

 retreated five or six hundred yards, the herd will 

 often stop and reconnoitre curiously. If by this 

 time the hunter should have discovered himself, 

 or should have shown any disposition to follow 

 on their tracks, they then lose no time in putting 

 a much greater distance between themselves and 

 him. They have a curious habit as a rule of 

 retreating in a wide circle, and more than once, 

 on having failed to get a shot on my first approach, 

 I have been successful in cutting them off by 

 hastily following a line at an angle to that of their 

 retreat. 



They suffer severely from the attacks of wild 

 animals, every species of the carnivorous families 

 seeming to have formed a partiality for their 

 flesh. So much is this the case that it appears 

 hard to account for their immense numbers. 

 Fortunately, they have been endowed with mar- 

 vellous reproductive powers, and are, with per- 

 haps the exception of the duikers, the only ante- 

 lopes within my knowledge capable of producing, 

 as they occasionally do, more than one calf at a 



