lope that one meets frequently in the
grassy places of East Africa. It is small, with dark complexion, and
goes through the high grass in a way that strongly suggests the diving
of a porpoise at sea. In fact, it gets its Dutch name for that reason,
_duiker bok_, meaning "diving buck" in Dutch. There are a dozen or more
different species of duikers, and they may be found scattered all over
South and East Africa. They are difficult to shoot, for their diving
habits make them a fleeting target; also their size, about twenty or
thirty pounds in weight, makes them a small target.

Quite often the little duiker will hide in the grass until you have
almost stepped on him, and then, if he considers discovery inevitable,
he will spring away with his little huddled-up back rising and
disappearing over the grass exactly as the porpoise does in the water.
One day while we were beating some tall grass for lions, one of the
porters stepped on a duiker, and its sharp horns, twisting suddenly, cut
him on the ankle. The horns of the bucks are short and straight, from
four to six inches long, but most often about four and a half inches.

It would take an expert mathematician to keep track of all the different
kinds of duikers, for there's the crowned duiker, the yellow-backed
duiker, the red duiker, Jentink's duiker, Abbott's duiker, the Ituri red
duiker, the black-faced duiker, Alexander's duiker, the Ruddy duiker,
Weyn's duiker, Johnston's duiker, Isaac's duiker, Harvey's duiker,
Roberts' duiker, Leopold's duiker, the white-bellied duiker, the bay
duiker, the chestnut duiker, the white-lipped duiker, Ogilby's duiker,
Brooke's duiker, Peter's duiker, the red-flanked duiker, the banded
duiker, Walker's duiker, the white-faced duiker, the black duiker,
Maxwell's duiker, the black-rumped duiker, the Uganda duiker, the blue
duiker, the Nyasa duiker, Heck's duiker, the Urori duiker, Erwin's
duiker, and I suppose a lot more that the naturalists have not had time
to catalogue.

[Drawing: _Like a Popular Cemetery_]

One would assume that with all these duikers there would hardly be room
left in Africa for any other animals. But there is. For instance,
there's the oribi and the dik-dik, to say nothing of the steinbuck and
the klipspringer. The last named is a rock-jumping antelope, the others
little grass antelopes, and all of them are as pretty and cute as
animals can be. They are all small, the dik-dik being scarcely larger
than a rabbit,