THE GAZELLES AND THEIR ALLIES 603 
tion which is founded on a mounted specimen secured by 
Jackson in British East Africa, it is available for the gazelle 
inhabiting the interior highlands. 
The Thomson gazelle, everywhere known as the Tommy, 
is an abundant animal on the plains of much of British 
East Africa. Its range roughly corresponds with the 
range of the common kongoni hartebeest and the wilde¬ 
beest; why it should not, like the zebra, extend this range 
to take in other stretches of country of seemingly the same 
character is hard to understand. It is another case like 
that of the hartebeests, like that of the topi and the wilde¬ 
beests, where the sharply drawn line of distribution seems 
entirely artificial, there being no difference of flora or of 
climate to account for the abundance of the species in one 
place and its absence from another place substantially the 
same in character. 
The Tommy is the smallest of the true plains game. It 
is purely a beast of the open grass-land, and in its habits 
it does not differ materially from the bigger plains game 
with which it associates. It is generally found where 
there are no trees at all, but it does not object to the pres¬ 
ence of the thinly scattered acacias which in Africa one 
grows accustomed to associate with the sight of teeming 
wild life. It is one of the numerous antelope which 
never hide and never seek to escape observation. Its 
coloring is conspicuous because of the vivid black lateral 
stripe, and as its tail is twitching violently all the time, and, 
as it never seeks cover, it never, when adult, eludes the 
sight of any foe if the conditions are such that any animal 
can be seen at all. The fawns, as is the case with the 
young of all antelopes, and even of wild oxen, and probably 
