52 
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 
one heavy buck which I shot, although with poor horns, 
weighed 171 pounds. The finest among the old bucks have 
beautiful lyre-shaped horns, over two feet long, and their 
proud, graceful carriage and lightness of movement render 
them a delight to the eye. As I have already said, the 
young and the females have the dark side stripe which 
marks all the tommies; but the old bucks lack this, and 
their color fades into the brown or sandy of the dry plains 
far more completely than is the case with zebra or kongoni. 
Like the other game of the plains they are sometimes found 
in small parties, or else in fair-sized herds, by themselves, 
and sometimes with other beasts; I have seen a single fine 
buck in a herd of several hundred zebra and kongoni. The 
Thomson’s gazelles, hardly a third the weight of their 
larger kinsfolk, are found scattered everywhere; they are 
not as highly gregarious as the zebra and kongoni, and are 
not found in such big herds; but their little bands—now a 
buck and several does, now a couple of does with their 
fawns, now three or four bucks together, now a score of 
individuals—are scattered everywhere on the flats. Like 
the Grants, their flesh is delicious, and they seem to have 
much the same habits. But they have one very marked 
characteristic: their tails keep up an incessant nervous 
twitching, never being still for more than a few seconds at 
a time, while the larger gazelle in this part of its range 
rarely moves its tail at all. They are grazers and they 
feed, rest, and go to water at irregular times, or at least 
at different times in different localities; and although they 
are most apt to rest during the heat of the day, I have 
seen them get up soon after noon, having lain down for a 
couple of hours, feed for an hour or so, and then lie down 
