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AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 
rapidly through the tall grass. I also expended a large 
number of cartridges before securing a couple of gerenuk; 
the queer, long-legged, long-necked antelope were wary, 
and as soon as they caught a glimpse of me off they would 
go at a stealthy trot or canter through the bushes, with 
neck outstretched. They had a curious habit of rising on 
their hind legs to browse among the bushes; I do not re¬ 
member seeing any other antelope act in this manner. There 
were waterbuck along the river banks, and I shot a couple 
of good bulls; they belonged to the southern and eastern 
species, which has a light-colored ring around the rump; 
whereas the western form, which I saw at Naivasha, has the 
whole rump light-colored. They like the neighborhood of 
lakes and rivers. I have seen parties of them resting in 
the open plains during the day, under trees which yielded 
little more shade than telegraph poles. The handsome, 
shaggy-coated waterbuck has not the high withers which 
mark the oryx, wildebeest, and hartebeest, and he carries 
his head and neck more like a stag or a wapiti bull. 
One day we went back from the river after giraffe. 
It must have been a year since any rain had fallen. The 
surface of the baked soil was bare and cracked, the sparse 
tussocks of grass were brittle straw, and the trees and 
bushes were leafless; but instead of leaves they almost all 
carried thorns, the worst being those of the wait-a-bit, which 
tore our clothes, hands, and faces. We found the giraffe 
three or four miles away from the river, in an absolutely 
waterless region, densely covered with these leafless wait-a- 
bit thorn-bushes. Hanging among the bare bushes, by the 
way, we roused two or three of the queer, diurnal, golden¬ 
winged, slate-colored bats; they flew freely in the glare of 
