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THE TREK-BOKKE (GAZELLA EUCHORE) OF 

 THE CAPE COLONY. 



By S. C. Cron wright -Schreiner. 



South Africa has probably never been surpassed in the variety and 

 profusion of its wild animals ; it has certainly had nothing more wonderful 

 than its prodigious numbers of Springbucks. These fleet and beautiful 

 creatures still exist in numbers incredible to people unacquainted with the 

 country, though they have lately so decreased that it is almost impossible 

 now to form any conception of the hosts that infested the endless flats only 

 a few years ago. Where Springbucks run wild in large numbers they are 

 distinguished as " Hou-bokke" and " Trek-bokke," the "Hou-bokke " being 

 bucks (we term all our Antelopes " bucks ") that live permanently on the 

 same veld, the " Trek-bokke " those that congregate in vast hosts and 

 migrate from one part of the country to another in seasons of drought. 

 When the country was so densely covered with all kinds of game, the vast 

 herds of Springbucks quickly felt the effects of the frequent droughts that 

 devastate the inland up country parts, and began to " trek." Congregating 

 in millions, they moved off in search of better veld, destroying everything 

 in their march over the arid flats. The " Trek-bokke " can only be com- 

 pared, in regard to number, with the Bison of North America, or the 

 Pigeons of the Canadas. To say they migrate in millions is to employ an 

 ordinary figure of speech used vaguely to convey the idea of great numbers ; 

 but in the case of these bucks it is the literal truth. 



Gordon Cumming, who shot in South Africa in the early forties, and 

 whose book (' The Lion Hunter in South iUrica '), more than any book with 

 which I am acquainted, gives some idea of the extraordinary variety and 

 profusion of game which then existed, refers to a " Trek-bokken or grand 

 migration of Springboks " which he saw between Cradock and Colesberg, 

 and vividly describes how he stood on the forechest of his waggon, watching 

 the bucks pass "like the flood of some great river," during which time 

 " these vast legions continued streaming through the nek in the hills in one 

 unbroken compact phalanx " ; then he saddled his horse, rode into the 

 midst of them, and shot until he cried " Enough." But this vast and 

 surprising trek was, he says, " infinitely surpassed " by one he saw some 

 days later. He " beheld the plains, and even the hillsides, which stretched 

 away on every side, thickly covered, not with herds, but with one vast mass 



