Seen in great numbers when our troops crossed the Bayuda Desert.
Grant's gazelles, though they undoubtedly find their most congenial home in open country, have also been met with by recent travellers in bush-sprinkled wastes and stony, rugged hills. They are, however, never found in dense jungles or high mountains. They live in herds of from half a dozen to twenty or thirty individuals, though in certain localities as many as 200 have been seen together. They are fond of consorting with other game, such as Burchell's and Grevy's zebras, Coke's hartebeest, and the beisa oryx, and are often met with at long distances from the nearest water. They are keen-sighted and wary, and from the open character of the country in which they are usually encountered are often difficult to stalk. When in good condition, the meat of this gazelle is said to be excellent.
The nearest ally of the true gazelles is undoubtedly the Springbuck of South Africa. Owing to the protection which it has received of late years, this graceful antelope is now a common animal in many parts of South Africa, and in the north-western portions of the Cape Colony still sometimes collects into prodigious herds, which travel through the country in dense masses, destroying every vestige of grass on the line of their advance, and causing considerable anxiety to farmers, whose flocks of sheep and goats are sometimes swept away by the migrating springbucks. In former years the migration of these antelopes in countless thousands from the deserts of Namaqualand to the countries farther south was a common occurrence, an unerring instinct guiding the wandering herds to districts where rain had lately fallen and caused a new growth of green grass. The animals composing these migrating herds were called by the Dutch settlers of the Cape Colony "Trekbokken," or "travelling-bucks."
Photo by W. P. Dando] [Regent's Park.
RED-FRONTED GAZELLE.
Inhabits Dongola and Senaar.
Two other antelopes, the Dibatag and the Gerenuk, are included in the present group; but both, whilst typically gazelline in certain respects, differ so much in other ways from all members of that group that each has been placed in a separate genus.
The Dibatag is a very remarkable-looking antelope, only found in certain districts of Central Somaliland, where it was first discovered by Mr. T. W. H. Clarke in 1890. This species shows the face-markings of the gazelles, whilst the horns, which are only present in the males, much resemble in shape those of a reedbuck. They are rather short, attaining a length of only 11 or 12 inches, and their basal halves are strongly ringed in front. The neck of this antelope is singularly long and thin, and the tail, which is held curved forwards over the back when the animal is in motion, is also much elongated, and only tufted at the tip. The dibatag frequents sandy ground sparsely covered with low thorn-bushes, and lives in small families, being usually met with in twos or threes, whilst it is rare to find more than four or five consorting together.
