WILDEBEEST 
173 
CH. VIIl] 
one going to water at noon, and others just at dark ; 
and their hours for feeding and resting were also irregular, 
though they were apt to lie down or stand motionless 
during the middle of the day. Doubtless in very hot 
weather they prefer to rest under a tree ; but we were 
hunting in cool weather, during which they paid no 
heed whatever to the sun. Their sight is very bad, 
their scent and hearing acute. 
On this day Kermit was shooting from his left 
shoulder, and did very well, killing a fine Roberts’ 
gazelle and three topi. I also shot a topi bull, as Heller 
wished a good series for the National Museum. The 
topi and wildebeest I shot were all killed at long range, 
the average distance for the first shot being over three 
hundred and fifty yards ; and in the Sotik, where 
hunters were few, the game seemed if anything shyer 
than on the Athi plains, where hunters were many. 
But there were wide and inexplicable differences in this 
respect among the animals of the same species. One 
day I wished to get a doe tommy for the Museum. I 
saw scores, but they were all too shy to let me approach 
within shot, yet four times I passed within eighty yards 
of bucks of the same species which paid hardly any heed 
to me. Another time I walked for five minutes along¬ 
side a big party of Roberts’ gazelles, within a hundred 
and fifty yards, trying in vain to pick out a buck worth 
shooting ; half an hour afterward I came on another 
party which contained such a buck, but they would not 
let me get within a quarter of a mile. 
Wildebeest are usually the shyest of all game. Each 
herd has its own recognized beat, to which it ordinarily 
keeps. Near this camp there was a herd almost always 
to be found somewhere near the southern end of a big 
hill two miles east of us ; while a solitary bull was 
