648 
African Game Trails 
and white beneath, with the terminal half crouched on all-fours or raised itself on its 
of the tail very dark. In hunting them we hind legs. I shot half a dozen, all that the 
simply walked over the flats for a couple of naturalists wanted. Then I tried to shoot 
hours, flashing the bull’s-eye lantern on all a fox; but the moon had risen from behind 
a cloud bank; I had to take a 
long shot and missed. 
While waiting for the safari 
to get ready, Kermit went off 
From a photograph by Edmund Heller. 
sides, until we saw the light reflected back 
by a springhaas’s eyes. Then I would ap¬ 
proach to within range, hold the lantern in 
my left hand so as to shine both on the sight 
and on the eyes in front, resting my gun on 
my left wrist. The number 3 shot, in the 
Fox double-barrel, would always do the 
business, if I held straight enough. There 
was nothing but the gleam of the eyes to 
shoot at; and this might suddenly be raised 
or lowered as the intently watching animal 
on a camping trip and shot 
two bushbuck, while I spent a 
couple of days trying for sing 
sing waterbuck on the edge of 
the papyrus. I did not shoot 
well, and among other feats I 
missed one bull, and wounded 
another which I did not get, as 
well as missing a serval as it 
bounded off in the tall grass. 
This was all the more exas¬ 
perating because interspersed 
with the misses were some good 
shots: I killed a fine waterbuck 
cow at a hundred yards, and a 
buck tommy for the table at 
two hundred and fifty; and, 
after missing a handsome black 
and white, red-billed and red- 
legged jabiru, or saddle-billed 
stork, at a hundred and fifty 
yards, as he stalked through 
the meadow after frogs, I cut 
him down on the wing at a hun¬ 
dred and eighty, with the little 
Springfield rifle. The water- 
buck spent the daytime out¬ 
side, but near the edge of the 
papyrus; I found them grazing 
or resting, in the open, at all 
times between early morning 
and late afternoon. Some of 
them spent most of the day in 
the papyrus, keeping to the 
watery trails made by the hip¬ 
pos and by themselves; but this 
was not the general habit, un¬ 
less they had been persecuted. When fright¬ 
ened they often ran into the papyrus, smash¬ 
ing the dead reeds and splashing the water 
in their rush. They are noble-looking an¬ 
telope, with long, shaggy hair, and their 
chosen haunts beside the lakes were very 
attractive. Clumps of thorn trees and flow¬ 
ering bushes grew at the edge of the tall 
papyrus here and there, and often formed 
a matted jungle, the trees laced together 
by creepers, many of them brilliant in 
