296 
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 
pounds; doubtless there is complete intergradation, but 
the Guaso Nyero form seemed slimmer and lighter, and 
in some respects seemed to tend toward the Somaliland 
gazelles. I marked no difference in the habits, except that 
these northern gazelle switched their tails more jerkily, 
more like tommies, than was customary with the true 
Grant’s gazelles. But the difference may have been in 
my observation. At any rate, the gazelles in this neighbor¬ 
hood, like those elsewhere, went in small parties, or herds 
of thirty or forty individuals, on the open plains or where 
there were a few scattered bushes, and behaved like those 
in the Sotik or on the Athi Plains. A near kinsman of 
the gazelle, the gerenuk, a curious creature with a very 
long neck, which the Swahilis call ‘‘little giraffe,” was 
scattered singly or in small parties through the brush, and 
was as wild and wary as the common gazelle was tame. 
It seemed to prefer browsing, while the common gazelle 
grazes. 
The handsome oryx, with their long horns carried by 
both sexes, and their coloring of black, white, and dun 
gray, came next to the gazelle in point of numbers. They 
were generally found in herds of from half a dozen to fifty 
individuals, often mixed with zebra herds. There were also 
solitary bulls, probably turned out of the herds by more 
vigorous rivals, and often one of these would be found with 
a herd of zebras, more merciful to it than its own kinsfolk. 
All this game of the plains is highly gregarious in habit, 
and the species associate freely with one another. The 
oryx cows were now generally accompanied by very young 
calves, for, unlike what we found to be the case with the 
hartebeest on the Athi, the oryx on the Guaso Nyero seem 
