618 
AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 
raised; the head usually up and back, but sometimes 
stretched in front; and often he grunts. 
Impalla are gregarious. Each master buck—or ram, as 
the males of all the lesser antelope are called in Africa— 
has a harem of twenty or thirty or forty does. Young 
bucks and very old bucks may be found solitary or in 
parties of half a dozen; a doe with a new-born fawn keeps 
by itself. Once we crept up to within ten yards of a doe 
and fawn lying down among the bushes. The big bucks 
fight fiercely for the mastery of the does. Kermit killed 
one with the broken horn of a rival imbedded in its neck. 
Evidently the two supple, vigorous beasts had bounded 
together with such force that the horn was broken off short; 
the piece was about ten inches long, of which the tip to 
the extent of three inches or so was imbedded in the muscle 
so firmly that it was pulled out only with effort. The 
wounded animal seemed in perfect health. 
Impalla live in cover, sometimes thick, sometimes thin, 
and never go more than a few miles from water. On the 
Athi we found them grazing on the open plains, a mile or 
two away from water, with gazelles and hartebeests, early 
in the morning and late in the afternoon; if disturbed, the 
gazelles and the hartebeests ran in the open, whereas the 
impalla at once left them and headed for the cover which 
bordered the river, a thick growth of trees and bushes. In 
this cover they passed several hours during the heat of the 
day, usually lying down, sometimes feeding. On the North¬ 
ern Guaso Nyiro and the Sotik I never happened to see them 
more than a couple of hundred yards from cover. They 
are chiefly grazers. They feed and rest alternately, day and 
night, for a few hours at a stretch. Of course, where much 
