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.