522 
AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 
They feed, however, where the ground is merely moist, or 
with only an inch or two of water, and where ant-hills dot 
the stretches of tall grass. They are grazers and crop the 
delicate grass of these moist stretches. Unlike the kob they 
never mount the ant-hills to watch; their trust is in skulk¬ 
ing under cover out of the reach of danger, and not in de¬ 
tecting danger afar off and then fleeing in the open. They 
are among the most noisy of antelope, continually uttering 
croaking grunts; when a herd is suspicious or slightly alarmed 
these grunts make a perfect chorus. The animals almost 
always kept to the cover of the tall grass, walking and trot¬ 
ting with their necks outstretched, and the heads below the 
level of the blade tops. Looking out over the marsh from 
an ant-heap, we might at first see nothing; then, two or three 
hundred yards off, a dozen heads would pop up, gaze steadily 
at us, disappear, and then, after an interval of a couple of 
minutes or so, reappear several hundred yards farther off. 
Usually they skulked off at a trot or canter, with neck out¬ 
stretched; but occasionally they galloped, now and then 
making great bounds over the tops of the tall grass. At 
other times they would stand in the tall grass until we were 
but a score of yards off, although they were completely 
screened from our view; then away they would steal, some¬ 
times grunting loudly. The flexible pasterns and spread 
hoofs leave big marks in the mud. The beasts make a tre¬ 
mendous noise as they smash through the reeds and splash 
across the shallow lagoons. Some of the biggest-bodied 
bucks, with longest horns, did not have the white on the 
withers and the back of the neck. Perhaps, in addition to 
being a mark of sex and age, their white coloration only 
develops seasonally. 
