If rain falls at the season it is due they roam widely and come low down to browse on the short-lived green feeding that soon springs up. At such times they find pools in almost every ravine, and they are animals that are very fond of water.
Of the specimens collected all were not weighed. However, 164 lbs. was a good male, and 112 lbs. a fair female. The best horns measured just over 26 inches. The Tuaregs call the Arui Afitall in Aïr, and Oudel in Ahaggar.
The final aspect I will refer to, regarding the animal life of the land, is of an ordinary day in the course of travel.
We are camped in the outlying hills of Aïr. It is a region where there is no winter even in the depth of the year, but in December and January the nights are bitterly cold.
The caravan sets out at dawn on the journey of the day, and the smouldering logs of a night-fire are left behind with regret.
We start over a land of sand and rocks, with high-reaching mountain slopes some miles in the forefront.
It is too early for birds to be showing. Like ourselves, they are feeling the uncommon cold, and shelter among the bushes on the banks of the river-beds until the sun grows warm and the land returns to its accustomed stifling heat.
It is the hour for game to be abroad. In the broken-up valley land a few beautiful little Dorcas Gazelle, of the colour of the sand, are seen busy breakfasting on slim, delicate grasses that they search for in open places. They are the most numerous game in Aïr; unlike the Mountain Sheep, which in comparison are rare, owing to their shyness and the nature of their almost inaccessible haunts. These two animals are the meat-giving game to the few natives of the land. There is one other—the large and handsome white-flanked Damas Gazelle, an exceedingly timid animal that is seldom seen in an ordinary day’s travel.
If I had set out expecting to see much I should have been disappointed, for hours pass and nothing of unusual consequence is encountered. But I know Aïr as a lone, deserted land where one has to be content with little.
I read the trail as the camels move along, particularly when sheets of sand are spread before me. No one has passed ahead; no print of camel foot or donkey hoof marks the surface anywhere. The neat little cloven-hoof prints of Gazelle are fairly numerous and the feet of Field-mice have drawn countless little daisies on the sand where they have fed through the night about tussocks of grass.