THE BUSHBUCKS 
degrees, according to locality. In habits, however, bushbucks are the 
same throughout their range. Being very nocturnal, they are seldom met 
with during the heat of the day, unless suddenly disturbed in their resting- 
places. They must be sought for early in the morning and late in the 
evening, as at such times they may be found feeding outside the dense 
bush in which they are accustomed to pass the heat of the day. Sometimes 
on cold mornings they will stand sunning themselves outside the bush till 
quite a late hour, but at such times they are always very much on the 
alert, and can only be approached by very careful stalking. When alarmed, 
bushbucks bark loudly, almost like a dog, and as this sound is often heard 
at nights, it is possible that it is also used as a call-note when the males 
are looking for the females during the pairing season; for bushbucks are 
very solitary animals, the males and the females living apart and alone 
except when mating. The latter are, however, often accompanied by a 
last year’s fawn almost as big, if a male, as themselves. The spoor of all 
bushbucks is an exact replica in miniature of that of the koodoo, and 
differs from that of all other genera of antelopes in that the line from the 
point of the toe to the heel is rounded instead of being straight. 
Stalking bushbucks at early dawn and in the late evening is a very 
pleasant and interesting pursuit, and to be successful requires all the 
woodcraft at one’s command, for the game is alert and wary, and, owing 
to its surroundings, difficult to see, except when moving. 
A far more deadly method of hunting bushbucks is by driving the jungles 
or tracts of bush in which they are accustomed to pass the day. This is a 
favourite sport in the Cape Colony and Natal, where large numbers are 
annually killed in this way. The guns — only shot-guns loaded with slugs 
are allowed — having been posted round one end of the cover, of course, 
below the wind, a small army of natives, accompanied by dogs, enter at 
the other end and work through it, making as much noise as possible. 
Old male bushbucks sometimes break back through the beaters, but, as a 
rule, everything in the bush, bushbucks, duikers and blue bucks, and 
sometimes even a leopard, goes forward and eventually runs the gauntlet 
of the guns. In 1876 I took part in one of these bushbuck hunts, not very 
far from Port Elizabeth, in the Eastern Province of the Cape Colony. The 
gentlemen whose guest I was had the exclusive shooting rights over a 
large tract of country in which the game was carefully preserved, only one 
big organized hunt taking place every year. We camped out in the forest 
for a week, and in four days’ driving eighty-one bushbucks were shot. 
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