287 
ch. xi] THE GAIT OF ELANDS 
never showed a sign of having received any damage in 
the encounter. I had always understood that the mon¬ 
goose owed its safety to its agility in avoiding the 
snake’s stroke, and I can offer no explanation of this 
particular incident. 
There were eland on the high downs not far from 
Meru, apparently as much at home in the wet, cold 
climate as on the hot plains. Their favourite gait is the 
trot. An elephant moves at a walk, or rather rack; a 
giraffe has a very peculiar leisurely-looking gallop, both 
hind-legs coming forward nearly at the same time out¬ 
side the fore-legs ; rhino and buffalo trot and run. 
Eland, when alarmed, bound with astonishing agility 
for such large beasts—a trait not shown by other 
large antelope, like o$yx—and then gallop for a short 
distance; but the big bulls speedily begin to trot, and 
the cows and younger bulls gradually also drop back 
into the trot. In fact, their gaits are in essence those 
of the wapiti, which also prefer the trot, although 
wapiti never make the bounds that eland do at the 
start. The moose, however, is more essentially a trotter 
than either eland or wapiti. A very old and heavy 
moose never, when at speed, goes at any other gait than 
a trot, except that under the pressure of great and 
sudden danger it may, perhaps, make a few bounds. 1 
While at Meru Boma I received a cable, forwarded 
1 A perfectly trustworthy Maine hunter informed me that in the 
spring he had once seen in the snow the marks where a bear had 
sprung at two big moose, and they had bounded for several rods 
before settling into the tremendous trot which is their normal gait 
when startled. I have myself seen signs that showed where a young 
moose had galloped for some rods under similar circumstances; 
and I have seen big moose calves or half-grown moose in captivity 
gallop a few yards in play, although rarely. But the normal, and 
under ordinary circumstances the only, gait of the moose is the 
trot. 
