,,i-^ h Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2007 witii funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.arcliive.org/details/africannaturenotOOseloiala BY THE SAME AUTHOR. A HUNTER'S WANDERINGS IN AFRICA. Nine Years amongst the Game of the P'ar Interior of South Africa. By Fkedkrick Courtf.ney Selous. Illustrated. Fifth Edition. 7s. 6d. net. MACMILLAN .AND CO., Ltd., LONDON. TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE IN SOUTH- EAST AFRICA. With numerous Illustrations and Map. 25s. net. SUNSHINE AND STORM IN RHODESIA. Fully Illustrated, with Map. los. 6d. net. ROWLAND WARD, Ltd., LONDON. AFRICAN NATURE NOTES AND REMINISCENCES MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YOKK • BOSTON • CHICAGO ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO I'NI-OKl KNA IKIV, ONK OK TIIKSK IKKKIIIC lii.OWS, VKKY I'Ki li:.\ i;I.V 1 1 1 K KIKSl AlMKl) Al 1111. I.KorAKI) WHICH SKIZKl) THK CAM', HAD SlKli K IIIK 1 I Ill-K CKKAirKK ON 1111. 1,()I.NS ANH IlRoKF.N US HACK." — /(/;,r 220. African Nature Notes and Reminiscences BY FREDERICK COURTENEY SELOUS, F.Z.S. GOLD MEDALLIST OF THK ROVAI. GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY WITH A "FOREWORD" BY PRESIDENT R00SP:VELT AND ILLUSTRATIONS BY E. CALDWELL MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1908 First Edition, April 1908. Reprinted Augvst 1908. TO THEODORE ROOSEVEL'i" PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED NOT ONLY BECAUSE IT WAS ENTIRELY OWING TO HIS INSPIRATION AND KINDLY ENCOURAGEMENT THAT IT WAS EVER WRITTEN HUT ALSO BECAUSE BOTH IN HIS 1>RIVATE AND PUBLIC I.IKE HE HAS ALWAYS WON THE SINCERE ADMIRATION AND ESTEEM OF THE AU'lHOR PREFACE The chapters comprised in the present volume were written at various times during the last ten years. Some of them have already appeared in print in the pages of the Field, Land and Water, and other papers, but the majority have remained in manuscript until now. The greatest part of the matter in the chapters on the " Lion " was written some years ago, and was intended to be the commencement of a book dealing entirely with the life- history of South African mammals. When, however, I was asked by Mr. Rowland Ward to contribute to a book he was about to publish on the Great and Small Gajne of Africa, all the articles in which would be written by men who had personally studied the habits of the animals they described, I gave up the idea of myself writing a less comprehensive work on similar lines, and became one of the chief contributors to Mr. Ward's large and valuable publication. My manuscript notes on the lion and some other animals were then consigned to the seclusion of a drawer in my study, from which they would probably never again have emerged had it not been for the fact that during the autumn of 1905 I had the honour to be the guest of President Roosevelt at the White House in Washington. viii AFRICAN NATURE NOTES I found that President Roosevelt's knowledge of wild animals was not confined to the big game of North America, with which he has made himself so intimately acquainted by long personal experience, but that he also possessed a most comprehensive acquaintance with the habits of the fauna of the whole world, derived from the careful study of practically every book that has been written on the subject. In the course of conversation, President Roosevelt remarked that he wished I would bring out another book, adding to the natural history notes which I had already written on the big game of South Africa ; and on my telling him that I had some manuscript notes on the lion and other animals which I had once intended to publish, but had subsequently put on one side, he requested me to let him see them. On my return to England I at once posted these articles to President Roosevelt, who was kind enough to say that he had found them so interesting that he earnestly hoped I would add to them and bring out another book. Thus encouraged, I set about the revision of all my recent writings dealing with the natural history of South African animals which had not been published in book form, and after arranging them in chapters, sent the whole of the manuscript to President Roosevelt, at the same time asking him to be good enough to look through them, if he could find the time to do so, and telling him that if he thouL^ht them of sufficient interest to publish in the form oi a book, how much I should appreciate it, if he were able to write me a few lines by way of introduction, since the publication of the book would be entirely PREFACE ix due to the kind encouragement and inspiration I had received from himself. This request met with a most kind and generous response, for which I shall ever feel most grateful, for, in the midst of all his multifarious and harassing public duties, President Roosevelt contrived to find the time to write an introduction to my book, which adds to it a most interesting and valuable chapter. The title I have given to my book, African Nature Notes and Re?ninisce7ices, though it perhaps lacks terseness, nevertheless exactly describes its scope, and although the chapters dealing with the "Tse-tse" Fly and the subject of Protective Colora- tion and the Influence of Environment on large mammals may have no interest except for a small number of naturalists, I trust that much of the matter contained in the remaining seventeen articles will appeal to a much wider public. I must once more acknowledge my indebtedness to President Roosevelt, not only for the very interesting " Foreword " he has contributed to this book, but also for the constant encouragement he has given me during its preparation. My best thanks are also due to Mr. Max C. Fleischmann of Cincinnati for the very remarkable account which will be found at the end of Chapter X. of the struggle between a crocodile and a rhinoceros, of which he was an eye-witness ; as well as to my friend Mr. E. Caldwell for the great pains he has taken to render the ten illustrations emanating from his able pencil as lifelike as possible. As it is possible that some of those who may glance through this book may be versed in South AFRICAN NATURE NOTES African languages, and may remark that I have sometimes represented the Masarwa bushmen as speaking in the Sechwana language, and at others in the dialect spoken by the Matabele, it may perhaps be as well to explain that whilst the greater part of the Bushmen living between the Limpopo and the Zambesi were the serfs of Bechwana masters, a few of those living near the western border of Matabeleland had become the vassals of certain Matabele headmen, by whom they were employed as hunters and trappers. Besides their own language — which is almost impossible of acquirement by a European — all the Bushmen I ever met spoke that of their masters as well. This was usually Sechwana, but sometimes Sintabele — the language of the Matabele people. F. C. SELOUS. WoRPLESDON, Surrey, Dec. 31, 1907. FOREWORD Mr. Selous is the last of the big-game hunters of South Africa ; the last of the mighty hunters whose experiences lay in the greatest hunting ground which this world has seen since civilized man has appeared therein. There are still many happy hunting grounds to be found by adventure-loving wilderness wanderers of sufficient hardihood and prowess ; and in Central Alrica the hunting grounds are of a character to satisfy the most exacting hunter of to-day. Nevertheless, they none ot them quite equal South Africa as it once was, whether as regards the extraordinary multitude of big -game animals, the extraordinary variety of the species, or the bold attraction of the conditions under which the hunting was carried on. Mr. Selous is much more than a mere biof-o-ame o o _ hunter, however ; he is by instinct a keen held naturalist, an observer with a power of seeing, and of rememberinof what he has seen ; and hnallv he is a writer who possesses to a very marked and unusual degree the power vividly and accurately to put on paper his observations. Such a combina- tion oi qualities is rare indeed, and the lack of any one of them effectually prevents any man from doing work as valuable as Mr. Selous has done. No ordinary naturalist fills the place at all. Big game exists only in the remote wilderness. Thru- out historic time it has receded steadily before the advance of civilized man, and now the retrogression AFRICAN NATURE NOTES — or, to be more accurate, the extermination — is going on with appalling rapidity. The ordinary naturalist, if he goes into the haunts of big game, is apt to find numerous small animals of interest, and he naturally devotes an altogether dispropor- tionate share of his time to these. Yet such time is almost wasted ; for the little animals, and especi- ally the insects and small birds, remain in the land long after the big game has vanished, and can then be studied at leisure by hosts of observers. The observation of the great beasts of the marsh and the mountain, the desert and the forest, must be made by those hardy adventurers who, unless ex- plorers by profession, are almost certainly men to whom the chase itself is a dominant attraction. But the great majority of these hunters have no power whatever of seeing accurately. There is no fonder delusion than the belief that the average old hunter knows all about the animals of the wilderness. The Bushman may ; but, as Mr. Selous has shown, neither the average English, Boer, nor Kafir hunter in South Africa does ; and neither does the white or Indian hunter in North America. Any one who doubts this can be referred to what Mr. Selous has elsewhere said concerninq- the rhinoceroses of South Africa and the astounding misinformation about them which the average South African hunter of every type believed and perpetuated ; and in my own experience I have found that most white and Indian hunters in the Rocky Mountains are just as little to be trusted when, for instance, they speak of the grizzly bear and the cougar — two animals which always tend to excite their imaginations. Finally, the few accurate observers among the men who have seen much of big game are apt wholly to lack the power of expression, and this means that their knowledge can benefit no one. The love of nature, the love of outdoor life, is growing in FOREWORD xiii our race, and it is well that it should grow. There- fore we should prize exceedingly all contributions of worth to the life-histories of the great, splendid, terrible beasts whose lives add an immense majesty to the far-off wilds, and who inevitably pass away before the onrush of the greedy, energetic, forcelul men, usually both unscrupulous and short-sighted, who make up the vanguard of civilization. Mr. Selous has hunted in many parts of the world, but his most noteworthy experiences were in Africa, south of the Zambezi, when the dry up- lands, and the valleys of the dwindlini^ rivers, and the thick coast jungle belt, still held a fauna as vast and varied as that of the Pleistocene. Mighty hunters, Dutch and English, roamed hither and thither across the land on foot and on horseback, alone, or guiding the huge white -topped ox- wagons ; several among their number wrote with power and charm of their adventures ; and at the very last the man arose who could tell us more of value than any of his predecessors. Mr. Selous by his observations illustrates the great desirability of having the views of the closet naturalist tested by competent field observers. In a previous volume he has effectively answered those amiable closet theorists who once advanced the Rousseau-like belief that in the state of nature hunted creatures suffered but little from either pain or terror ; the truth being that, in the easy con- ditions of civilized life, we hardly even conceive of pain and horror as they were in times primeval ; while it is only in nightmares that we now realize the maddened, hideous terror which our remote ancestors so often underwent, and which is a common incident in the lives of all harmless wild creatures. In the first two chapters of the present volume, Mr. Selous' remarks on the fallacy of much of the theory of protective coloration are excellent. xiv AFRICAN NATURE NOTES The whole subject is one fraught with difficulty and deserving of far more careful study than has ever yet been given it. That the general pattern of coloration, so to speak, of birds and mammals of the snowy North as compared to the South, of a dry desert as compared to a wet forest region, is due to the effect of the environment I have no question ; and Mr. Selous' observations and argu- ments show that the protective theory has been ridiculously overworked in trying to account for coloration like that of the zebra and giraffe, for instance ; but there is much that as yet it is difficult to explain. The most conspicuous colors of nature, for instance, are, under ordinary circumstances, black and white. Yet we continually find black, and sometimes white, animals thriving as well as their more dull-colored compeers under conditions that certainly seem as if they ought to favor the latter. The white goat of the Rocky Mountains may be helped by its coloration in winter, but in summer its white coat advertises its presence to every man or beast within ranfje of vision, and this at the verv time when the little white kids are most in need of protection. liagles are formidable foes of these little kids, and undoubtedly their white color is a disadvantage to them in the struggle for existence, when they are compared with the dull-colored lambs of the mountain sheep of the same general habitat. The sheep tend to become mainly or entirely white at the northern portion of their range — thereby becoming exceedingly conspicuous in summer — but change to grays and browns from the semi -Arctic regions southward. The goats, however, remain white everywhere. Again, birds and mammals of the far North tend to be white, but one of the typical far northern birds is the jet black raven. It is liard to believe that the FOREWORD XV color of the snowy owl assists it in getting its prey, or that its color hampers the raven. The northern weasels and northern hares of America both turn white in winter. Thru most of their range the various species of these weasels and hares exist side by side with the close kinsmen of the weasel, the mink and the sable, and at the southern boundary of their range side by side with the small gray rabbits ; none of which change their color any more than the lynx and fox do, and yet in the struggle for life seem to be put to no disadvantage thereby. The Arctic hare changes color as does the ptarmigan. The ordinary snow-shoe rabbits and jack-rabbits of the woods and plains south of the Arctic hare region also change their color ; but the grouse which inhabit the same woods or open plains, such as the ruffed, the sharp- tailed and the spruce, unlike their northern kinsman, the ptarmigan, undergo no seasonal change. Around my ranch on the Little Missouri, the jack-rabbits all turned white in winter ; the little cotton-tail rabbits did not ; yet as far as I could see both species were equally at home and fared equally well. When a boy, shooting on the edges of the desert in Egypt, I was imprest with the fact that the sand grouse, rosy bullfinches, sand larks and sand chats all in the coloration of their upper parts harmonized strikingly with the surroundings, while the bold black and white chats were peculiarly noticeable, and yet as far as I could see held their own as well in the struggle for existence. But as regards the first-named birds it seemed to me at the time that their coloration was probably protective, for in the breeding season the males of some of them showed striking colors, but always under- neath, where they would not attract the attention of foes. Mr, Selous also shows that the "signal" or xvi AFRICAN NATURE NOTES "mutual recognition" theory of coloration has been at the least carried to an extreme by closet naturalists. The prongbuck of North America has the power of erecting the glistening white hairs on its rump until it looks like a chrysanthemum ; but there seems scarcely any need of this as a signal ; for prongbucks live out on the bare plains, never seek to avoid observation, are very conspicuous beasts, and have eyes like telescopes, so that one of them can easily see another a mile or two off. According to my experience — but of course the experience of any one man is of limited value, and affords little ground for generalization — the "chrysanthemum" is shown when the beast is much aroused by curiosity or excitement. Mr. Selous' chapters on the lion possess a peculiar interest, for they represent without any exception the best study we have of the great, tawny, maned cat. No one observer can possibly cover the entire ground in a case such as this, for individual animals differ markedly from one another in many essential traits, and all the animals of one species in one locality sometimes differ markedly from all the animals of the same species in another locality (as I have myself found, in some extraordinary par- ticulars, in the case of the grizzly bear). Therefore, especially with a beast like the lion, one of the most interesting of all beasts, it is necessary for the naturalist to have at hand the observations of many different men ; but no other single observer has left a record of the lion of such value to the naturalist as Mr. Selous. One of the most interesting of Mr. Selous' chapters is that containing his notes on wild dogs, on hunting hounds, and on cheetahs. Especially noteworthy are his experiences in actually running down and overtaking by sheer speed of horse and hound both the wild dog and the cheetah. These FOREWORD xvii experiences are literally inexplicable with our present knowledge ; and therefore it is all the more valuable to have them recorded. Mr. Selous' own account of the speed of wild dogs and the statements of many competent observers about cheetahs — as for instance, of that mighty hunter, Sir Samuel Baker — make it clear that under ordinary circumstances both wild dogs and cheetahs, when running after their game, go at a speed far surpassing that of a horse. Yet in these instances given by Mr. Selous, he and his companions with their camp dogs once fairly ran down a pack of wild dogs ; and twice he fairly ran down full-grown cheetahs. In the last case it is possible that the hunted cheetah, not at first realizing his danger, did not put forth his full speed at the beginning, and, not being a long-winded animal, was exhausted and unable to spurt when he really discovered his peril. But with the hunting dogs it is hard to imagine any explanation unless they were gorged with food. In coursing wolves with greyhounds, I have noticed that the dogs will speedily run into even an old dog wolf, if he is found lying by a carcase on which he has feasted, under conditions which would almost certainly have insured his escape if he had been in good running trim. I once saw a cougar, an old male, jump from a ledge of rock surrounded by hounds and come down hill for several hundred yards thru the snow. The hounds started almost on even terms with him, but he drew away from them at once, and when he reached the bottom of the hill, was a good distance ahead ; but by this time he had shot his bolt, and after going up hill for a very few yards he climbed into a low ever- green tree, which I reached almost as soon as the hounds. His lungs were then working like bellows, and it was obvious he could have ijone no distance furth er. xviii AFRICAN NATURE NOTES The book of nature has many difficult passages, and some of them seem mutually contradictory. It is a good thing to have capable observers who can record faithfully what they find therein, and who are not in the least afraid of putting down two observa- tions which are in seeming conflict. Allied species often differ so radically in their habits that, with our present knowledge, not even a guess can be made as to the reason for the difference ; this makes it all the more necessary that there should be a multitude of trustworthy observations. Mr. Selous points out, for instance, the extraordinary difference in pugnacity between the fighting roan and sable antelopes, on the one hand, and on the other, the koodoo and the mild eland. There is quite as great difference between far more closely allied species, or even between individuals of one species in one place and those of the same species in another place. Sometimes the reasons for the difference are apparent ; all carnivores in India, with its dense, feeble population, would at times naturally take to man-killing. In other cases, at least a guess may be hazarded. The wolf of America has never been dangerous to man, as his no larger or more formid- able brother of Asia and Europe has been from time immemorial ; yet the difference may be accounted for by the difference of environment. But it is hard to say why the cougar, which is just about the size of the great spotted cats, and which preys on practically the same animals, should not be dangerous to man, while they are singularly formidable fighters when at bay. The largest cougar I ever killed was eight feet long and weighed over two hundred pounds. Very few African leopards or Indian panthers would surpass these measure- ments, and this particular animal had been preying not only on deer, but on horses and cattle ; yet 1 killed him with no danger to myself, under circum- FOREWORD xix stances which would probably have insured a charge from one of the big spotted cats of Africa or Asia, or, for the matter of that, from a South American jaguar. And by the way, in reading of the ravages committed by leopards among the hounds of the sport-loving planters of Ceylon, it has always seemed to me strange that these planters did not turn the tables on the aggressors by training packs especially to hunt them. Such a pack as that with which I have hunted the cougar and the black bear in the Rocky Mountains would, I am sure, give a good account of any leopard or panther that ever lived. All that would be needed would be a good pack of trained hounds and six or eight first-class fighting dogs in order, as I thoroly believe, completely to clear out the leopard from any given locality. Mr. Selous' notes on the Cape buffalo and tsetse fly are extremely interesting. But indeed this is true of all that he has written, both of the great game beasts themselves and of his adventures in hunting them. His book is a genuine contribution alike to hunting lore and to natural history. It should be welcomed by every lover of the chase and by every man who cares for the wild, free life of the wilderness. It should be no less welcome to all who are interested in the life-histories of the most formidable and interesting of the beasts that dwell in our world to-day. THEODORE ROOSEVELT. Thp: White House, .Uay 23, 1907. CONTENTS CHAPTER I NOTES ON THE QUESTIONS OF PROTECTIVE COLORATION, RECOGNITION MARKS, AND THE INFLUENCE OF ENVIRON- MENT ON LIVING ORGANISMS Harmony of colour in nature — Theory of protective coloration — Sexual selection — Conspicuous colours not harmful — The influence of environ- ment— The leucoryx — The Barbary sheeji — The Sardinian moufflon — African butterflies — Coloration of the musk ox and caribou — Arctic hares and foxes — Coloration of mammals in the Yukon Territory— The chamois in winter — Examples of conspicuous coloration in African mammals — Colour not always protective — Carnivorous animals usually hunt by scent — Wild dogs and wolves — Wild dog and sable antelope — Sense of smell in herbivorous animals — Sight of antelopes — Experience with waterbuck — Dull sight of caribou — Demeanour of wild animals when alarmed — Small antelopes — Lions — Large antelopes — Difficulty of seeing wild animals sometimes exaggerated^ — Powers of sight of iSushmen^ — Colour not protective against animals which hunt by night and by scent — Animals in motion easy to see — Restlessness of wild animals — Lions attacking bullocks — Zebras the principal prey of lions since the disappearance of buffaloes — Api^earance of zebras — Undoubtedly conspicuous animals in open country — Zebras by moonlight — -Strong smell of zebras — Conspicuous antelopes in East Africa — Efl"ect of the juxtaposition of black and white — Bold coloration of the sable antelope ......... Pages 1-23 CHAl'lKR II FURTHER NOTKS ON THE QUESTIONS OK PROTECTIVE COLORA- TION, RECOGNITION MARKS, AND THE INIT.UENXE OK ENVIRONMENT ON LIVING ORGANISMS Occasional resemblance of African mammals to natural objects — Hartebecsts — Elephants — (Jiraffes — C'oloration of the .Somali giraffe — Ciraffes not in need of a protective coloration — Koodoos and sable antelopes — Acute sense of hearing in the mfxise-- Possible explanation of large size of ears in the African tragelaphine antelopes — Coloration of bushlnicks, AFRICAN NATURE NOTES situtungas, and inyalas — Leopards the only enemies of the smaller bush- haunting antelopes — Recognition marks — Must render animals con- spicuous to friend and foe alike — Ranges of allied species of antelopes seldom overlap — Hybridisation sometimes takes place — Wonderful coloration of the bontebok — Coloration distinctly conspicuous and therefore not protective — Recognition marks unnecessary — Coloration of the blesbok — The blesbok merely a duller coloured bontebok — Difference in the habitat of the two species — The coloration of both species may be due to the influence of their respective environments — The weak point in the theory of protective coloration when applied to large mammals — Hares and foxes in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions — The efficacy of colour protection at once destroyed by movement — Buffaloes and lions — General conclusions regarding the theory of protective coloration as applied to large mammals. . Pages 24-43 CHAPTER III NOTES ON THE LION The lion — Native names for — Character of -Death of I'onto — Picture in Gordon Cumming's book — Death of Hendrik — Number of natives killed by lions— Usual mode of seizure — A trooper's adventure — Poisonous nature of lion's bite — Story of the Tsavo man-eaters — Death of Mr. Ryall — Stoiy of the tragedy — Precautions by natives against lions — Remains of a lion's victim found — Four women killed — Lion killed — Carcase burned — Story of the Majili man-eater — Man-eating lions usually old animals — Strength of lions — Large ox killed by single lion — Buffaloes killed by lions — Ox slowly killed by family of lions — Lions usually silent when attacking and killing their prey— Camp approached by three lions — \'arious ways of killing game — Favourite food of lions — Giraffes rarely killed by lions — Evidence as to lions attacking ele[)hants — Michael Engelbreght's story — Mr. Arnot's letter describing the killing of an elephant cow by six lions . . 44-66 CHAPTER IV NOTES ON THE LION {continued) Depredations of lions in Mashunaland — Sad death of Mr. Teale — Great slaughter of pigs by a lioness — Mode of entering a cattle kraal — Method of killing prey — Sharpness of lion's claws — .Mode of seizing a horse in motion — Lion chasing koodoos — Lions lying in wait for oxen — How a lion charges — Black Jantje's story — Numbing effect of lion's bite — Cruelly in nature — Appearance of w-ild lions — Colour of eyes — Lions at bay — A crouching lion — A lucky shot — The cat a lion in miniature A danger signal — Social habits of lions — Troo|« of lions — Lions on the Mababi plain — Difference between cubs of one litter — Individual differences in lions — Great variation in the development of the mane — Lion ])rohal)ly first evolved in a cold climate — Still found in ICurojie in the time of Herodotus — Effect of cold on growth of lion's mane 67-84 CONTENTS xxiii CHAPTER V NOTES ON THE LION {concluiUd) Method of opening a carcase — Removal of paunch and entrails — Lions skilful butchers — Paunch and entrails not usually eaten — Lions not bone-eaters — Will eat putrid meat — Will sometimes devour their own kind — Number of cubs at birth — Check on inordinate increase of carnivorous animals — The lion's roar — Diversity of opinion concerning its power — Probable explanation — Volume of sound when several lions roar in unison — A nerve-shaking experience — Lions silent when approaching their prey — Roar after killing — And in answer to one another — Lions only roar freely in undisturbed districts — Lions essenti- ally game-killers — But change their habits with circumstances — Killing lions with spear and shield — Bambaleli's splendid courage — Lions killed by Bushmen with poisoned arrows — Behaviour of domestic animals in the presence of lions — Cattle sometimes terrified, at other times show no fear ....... Pages 85-97 CHAPTER VI NOTES ON THE SPOTTED HY.ENA Character of hyxnas — Contrasted with that of wolves— Story illustrating the strength and audacity of a spotted hyxna — Mow a goat was seized and carried off — .\ mean trick — Boldness of hy.tnas near native villages — More suspicious in the wilderness — Very destructive to native live stock — -Will sometimes enter native huts — Giving an old woman to the hycenas — How the smelling out of witches benefited the hyaenas — "Come out, missionary, and give us the witch" — Number of hyxnas infesting Matabeieland in olden times — Trials for witchcraft in Mata- beleland — Food of hyxnas — Strength of jaws — Charged by a wounded hyaena — Heavy trap broken up — Killing hyx-nas with set guns — Hyoena held by dogs — Hy.ena attacked by wild dogs — Pace of hyenas— Curious experience on the Mababi plain — The hyaena's howl — Rhinoceros calf killed by hyenas — ^.Sniell of hyienas — Hyxna meat a delicacy— Small cows and donkeys easily killed by hya-nas — Size and weight of the spotted hyaena — Number of whelps ..... 9S-118 CHAPTER VH NOTES ON WILD DOGS AND CHETAHS ^^'ild dogs not very numerous — Hunt in packs — Attack herd of buffaloes -First experience with wild dogs — Imi)ala aincIoi)e killed — Koodoo cow driven into shed— Koodoo driven to waj^gon — Wild dogs not dani;erous to human beings — Greatly feared by all antelopes — Wild dog pursuing sable antelope — Great pace (iisi)laycd — Wild dogs cajxible of running down every kind of African antelope — General opinion as xxiv AFRICAN NATURE NOTES to the running powers of wild dogs — Curious incidents — Chasing wild dogs with tame ones — -One wild dog galloped over and shot — Two others caught and worried by tame dogs — Wild dog shamming dead — Clever escape — Chetahs overtaken on horseback — Three chetahs seen — Two females passed — Male galloped down — A second chetah overtaken — Great speed of trained Indian chetahs — Three chetah cubs found — Brought up by bitch ..... Pages 119-129 CHAPTER VIII Fi.KTINCTION .\ND DIMINUTION OF GAME IN SOUTH AFRICA — NOTES ON THE CAPE BUFFALO Extinction of the blaauwbok and the true quagga — Threatened extermination of the black and white rhinoceros and the buffalo in South Africa — Former abundance of game — Scene in the valley of Dett witnessed by the author in 1873 — Huft'aloes protected by the Cape Government — But few survivors in other parts of South Africa — Abundance of bulfaloes in former times — Extent of their range — Still plentiful in places up to 1896 — The terrible epidemic of rinderpest— Character of the African buffalo — A matter of individual experience — Comparison of butfalo with the lion and elephant — Danger of following wounded bufialoes into thick cover — Personal experiences — Well-known sports- man killed by a buffalo— Usual action of buffaloes when wounded — Difficult to slop when actually charging — The moaning bellow of a dying buffalo — Probable reasons for some apparently unprovoked attacks by buffaloes — Speed of buffaloes — Colour, texture, and abund- ance of coat at different ages — Abundance of butilaloes along the Chobi river — Demeanour of old buffalo bulls — "God's cattle" — Elephants waiting for a herd of buffaloes to leave a pool of water before themselves coming down to drink ....... 130-148 CHAPTER IX NOTES ON THE TSK-TSE FLY Connection between buffaloes and tse-tse flies — Sir Alfred .Sharpe's views — Buffaloes and tse-tse flies both once abundant in the valley of the Limpopo and many other districts south of the Zambesi, in which both have now become extinct— Permanence of all kinds of game other than buffaloes in districts fronj which the tse-tse fly has disappeared — Experience of Mr. Percy Kcid — Sudden increase of tse-tse flies between Leshuma and Kazungula during i888---Disappearance of the tse-tse fly from the country to the north of Lake N 'garni after the extermination of the buffalo — History of the country between the Gwai antl Daka rivers — And of the country between the Chobi and the Zambesi — Climatic and other conditions necessary to the existence of the tse- tse fly — Never found at a high altitude above the sea — Nor on open plains or in large reed beds — " Fly " areas usually but not always well defmed — Tse-tse flies most numerous in hot weather — Bite of the tse- tse fly fatal to all domestic animals, except native goats and perhaps CONTENTS XXV pigs — Donkeys more resistant to tse-tse fly poison than horses or cattle — Tse-tse flies active on warm nights — Effect of tse-tse fly bites on human beings ........ I'agcs 149-177 CHAPTER X NOTES ON THE BLACK OR PREHENSILE-LIPPED RHINOCEROS Character of the black rhinoceros — Its practical extermination in South Africa at a very trifling cost to human life— No case known to author of a Hoer hunter having been killed by a black rhinoceros— Accidents to English hunters^IIarris's opinion of and experiences with the black rhinoceros — Seemingly unnecessary slaughter of these animals — Large numbers shot by Oswell and V'ardon — Divergence of opinion concerning disposition of the two so-called diff"erent species of black rhinoceroses — Experiences of Gordon Cumming, Andersson, and Baldwin with these animals — Victims of the ferocity of the black rhinoceros extraordinarily few in South Africa — ^The author's experiences with these animals — Sudden rise in the value of short rhinoceros horns — Its fatal effect- Dull sight of the black rhinoceros — Keen scent — Inquisitiveness — Blind rush of the black rhinoceros when wounded — An advancing rhinoceros shot in the head — Author chased by black rhinoceroses when on horse- back— Curious experience near Thamma-Setjie — Black rhinoceroses charging through caravans — Coming to camp fires at night- — Author's doubts as to the extreme ferocity of black rhinoceroses in general — Testimony of experienced hunters as to the character of the black rhinoceros in the countries north of the Zambesi — Captain Stigand severely injured by one of these animals — Experiences of Mr. Vaughan Kirby— Extraordinary number of black rhinoceroses in East Africa — P^xperiences of A. H. Neumann and F. J. Jackson with these animals — Views of Sir James Ilayes-Sadler — Great numbers of rhinoceroses lately shot in East Africa without loss of life to hunters — Superiority of modern weapons — President Roosevelt's letter — Mr. Fleischmann's remarkable account of a combat between a rhinoceros and a crocodile — Possible explanation of seeming helplessness of the rhinoceros 178-204 CHAPTER XI NOTES ON THE OIRAFFK Appearance of the giraffe -Not a vanishing species — Immense range — Habitat — Native mounted hunters — Destruction of girafTes and other game by Europeans — Necessity of restraining native hunters - Discussion as to the possibility of the giraffe existing for long periods without drinking — Water -conserving tubers — Wild water-melons -Habits of elephants after much persecutit)n — Possible explanation of the belief that giraffes can dispense with water — Giraffes seen in the act of drinking — (Giraffes absolutely voiceless — Partial to open, park-like country — Difiicult to api^roach on foot — Giraffes very keen-scented — Hunting girafTes with Bushmen trackers — Exhilarating sport — Pace of the girafTe — The easiest way to kill girafles- -Driving wcnnided girafles to camp — xxvi AFRICAN NATURE NOTES Two curious experiences with giraffes — "Stink bulls" — Excellence of the meat of a fat giraffe cow — Height of giraffes— Giraffes only occasionally killed by lions — Young girafle attacked by leopards Pages 205-221 CHAPTER XII A JOURNEY TO AMATONGALANI) IN SEARCH OF INYALA The inyala, a rare and beautiful animal — Seldom shot by Englishmen — Account of, by Mr. Baldwin — Further observations of, by the Hon. W. H. Drummond — Inyala-shooting and fever almost synonymous — Dis- tribution of the inyala — Curious antelope shot by Captain Eaulkner — Start on journey in search of inyalas — Reach Delagoa Bay — Meet Mr. Wissels — \'oyage to the Majnita river — Depredations of locusts — Elephants still found in the .Matuta district — A quick run up the river — Reach Bella Vista — Talk with Portuguese officer — IIi])popotanuises seen — Change of weather — Longman engages four lady porters — Start for Mr. Wissels's station — Sleep at Amatonga kraal — Description of people — Cross the Maputa river — Reedbuck shot — Rainy weather— Reach Mr. Wissels's station ........ 222-238 CHAPTER XIII A JOURNEY TO AMAT0N(;AI,AND {coiicludcd) Receive information concerning the haunts of the inyala- Heavy thunder- storm— Start for Gugawi's kraal — Cross the Usulu river — Reach Gugawi's — Go out hunting — Crested guinea-fowl seen — Two inyalas shot — Angas's description of the inyala anleloije — Inyala skins pre])ared for mounting — Now safe in Natural History Museum — A third inyala shot — One missed — Move farther up the Usutu river — Country denuded of game — Bushbucks scarce — Hippopotamuses in river — Heavy thunder- storm— Two more male inyalas shot — Start on return journey to Delagoa Bay — Tedious journey — Intense heat — End of trip — Slight attacks of fever ........ 239-253 CHAPTER XIV .NOT):s ON THE CJEMSIiUCK. Number of African antelopes — The eland — Roan and sable antelopes — The greater koodoo — ( )ther antelopes — -The gemsbuck — Limited range -Habitat — Keen siglit — .Sjieed and enushmen — ^Not un- worthy members of the human race ..... 328-348 INDEX 349 ILLUSTRATIONS " Unfortunately, one of these terrific Blows, very J'ROBABLY the FIRST AIMED AT THE LEOPARD WHICH SEIZED THE CALF, HAD STRUCK THE LITTLE CREATURE ON THE Loins and broken its Back " . Frontispiece FACING I'AGE " He had EVIDENTLY BEEN SITTING OR LYING BY A Fire when caught" 53 Plate showing Differences in the Development of THE Mane in Lions inhabiting a comparatively SMALL Area of Country in South Africa . . 76 "A picked Man of dauntless Heart . . . would rush forward alone ...■'. . . . -93 "On the second Night they once more left it alone, but on the third they devoured it" . 103 " Such old Buffalo Bulls were very slow about getting out of one's way" . . . . .146 Photographs of a Struggle between a Rhinoceros AND A Crocodile : No. I. Shows the Rhinoceros holding its own, liut unable to reach the bank .... 202 No. 2. Shows the Rhinoceros still strugglin,^:, but in deeper water . . . . . .202 No. 3. Shows the Rhinoceros after it had turned round, and just before it got into deep water and was pulled under . . . 202 xxix XXX AFRICAN NATURE NOTES FACING PAGE " I KNEW IT WAS A MALE INYALA — THE FIRST THAT MY Eyes had ever looked upon" .... 242 "The Gemsbucks were now going at their utmost Speed, and when I had passed the Zebras were .still sixty or seventy yards in front of me" . 258 " My Gun-Carrier hurled another Lump of Burning Wood at our Visitor" 273 The Last of South Africa's Game Haunts , . 302 CHAPTER I NOTES ON THE QUESTIONS OF PROTECTIVE COLORA- TION, RECOGNITION MARKS, AND THE INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENT ON LIVING ORGANISMS Harmony of colour in nature — Theory of protective coloration — Sexual selection — Conspicuous colours not harmful — The influence of environment — The leucoryx — The Barbary sheep — The Sardinian moufflon — African butterflies — Coloration of the musk ox and caribou — Arctic hares and foxes — Coloration of mammals in the Yukon Territory — The chamois in winter — Examples of conspicuous coloration in African mammals — Colour not always protective — Carnivorous animals usually hunt by scent — Wild dogs and wolves — Wild dog and sable antelope — Sense of smell in herbivorous animals — Sight of antelopes — Experience with waterbuck — Dull sight of caribou — Demeanour of wild animals when alarmed — Small antelopes — Lions — Large antelopes — Difficulty of seeing wild animals sometimes exaggerated — Powers of sight of Bushmen — Colour not protective against animals which hunt by night and by scent — Animals in motion easy to see — Restlessness of wild animals — Lions attacking bullocks — Zebras the principal prey of lions since the disappearance of buffaloes — Appearance of zebras — Undoubtedly conspicuous animals in open country — Zebras by moonlight — Strong smell of zebras — Conspicuous antelopes in East Africa — Effect of the juxtaposition of black and white — Bold coloration of the sable antelope. Although there are certain striking exceptions to the general rule, yet, broadly speaking, it cannot be gainsaid that living organisms are usually coloured in such a way as to make them difficult of detection by the human eye amongst their natural surround- ings. Every collecting entomologist knows how I B 2 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. closely certain species of butterflies when resting with closed wings in shady forests resemble dead leaves, or moths the bark of trees. Birds too, especially those which nest on the ground, often harmonise with their surroundings in a most mar- vellous way. In the open treeless regions within the Arctic Circle, as well as on bare mountain ranges, nearly all the resident species of animals and birds turn white in winter, when their whole visible world is covered with an unbroken mantle of pure white snow, and become brown or grey during the short period of summer. In treeless deserts again within the tropics, where the rainfall is very scanty and the climate excessively hot and dry, with intense sunlight throughout the year, all resident living organisms, mammals, birds, reptiles, and insects, are found to be of a dull coloration which harmonises in the most wonderful way with the sandy or stony soil on which they live. It is also very often the case that animals which live in forests where the foliage is not too dense to allow the sun to penetrate are spotted or striped, whilst those which live in really thick jungle or amongst deep gloomy ravines are of a uniform dark coloration. Now a most interesting question arises as to the true causes which have brought about the extraordinary variations of colour to be seen in living organisms inhabiting different parts of the world. It is, I believe, the general opinion of modern naturalists that, putting aside cases where brilliant colours may have been produced amongst birds and insects by the action of the law of sexual selection, the coloration of all living organisms is protective, "serving," as that distinouished naturalist Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace puts it, when discussing the I THE COLORATION OF MAMMALS 3 subject of the coloration of mammals, " to conceal herbivorous species from their enemies, and en- abling carnivorous animals to approach their prey unperceived." Many very striking facts can be adduced in support of this theory, and no doubt it is of ad- vantage to most species of mammals, birds, reptiles, and insects to harmonise in colour with their surroundings ; but there are many instances in nature, especially amongst birds and insects, where a very striking and conspicuous coloration does not appear to have been prejudicial to the life of a species. The highly decorative but very conspicuously coloured plumage to be seen in the males of many species of birds, especially during the breeding season, was considered by the immortal Darwin to be due to the influence of sexual selection, and whatever may be urged against the correctness of this theory, it is supported by a long array of indisputable facts. Great, however, as is the divergence between the plumage of the males and females in many species of birds, not only during the breeding season, but in a great number of cases at all times of year, and however gaudy and conspicuous the coloration of the former may be compared with that of the latter, such conspicuous coloration never appears to be prejudicial to the life of a species, though in some cases the brighter coloured male assists the female in incubation, and it would thus appear that in all such cases the sombre coloured plumage of the female was not absolutely necessary for purposes of protection against enemies. I therefore think that if it is admitted that brig^ht and conspicuous colours have been evolved in living oro^anisms through the action of the law of sexual selection, without detriment to the life of the species 4 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. in which such conspicuous colours are shown, it must be conceded that a coloration harmonising with its surroundings is not a necessity of existence in all cases to all species of mammals, birds, reptiles, and insects, and that it is therefore quite possible that where living organisms agree very closely in colour with their surroundings, such harmonious coloration may have been produced by some other agency than the need for protection by colour, and I would suggest that in addition to the influence exerted in the evolution of colour in living organisms by the action of sexual selection, and the necessity for protection against enemies, a third factor has also been at work, which I will call the influence of environment. It is worthy of remark, I think, that in hot, dry deserts, where the climatic conditions are stable, and where the general colour of the landscape is therefore very much the same all the year round, all the resident species of mammals, birds, reptiles, and insects are what is called protectively coloured, that is to say, they are all of a dull brown or greyish coloration,^ which harmonises beautifully with their parched, dull-coloured environment. In the leucoryx, the Saharan representative of the gems- buck of South-Western Africa, all the black mark- ings which are so conspicuous in the latter animal have disappeared or become pale brown, whilst the general colour of the body has been bleached to a dirty white. Now, no one can persuade me that if the leucoryx were coloured exactly like its near relative the gemsbuck, it would suffer one iota more, in the open country in which it lives, from the attacks of carnivorous animals than it does at present, and I therefore believe that the faded ' The cock ostrich is, I think, the only exception to tliis rule, and in the case of this remarkable bird the influence of sexual selection has probably been more p(jtent than that of a ilull-ci)loured, monotonous environment. TWO RACES OF ZEBRAS colour of the leucoryx, as compared with that of the gemsbuck or the beisa antelope, has not been brought about in order to serve as a protection against enemies, but is directly due to the influence of its desert environment, and constant exposure to strong sunlight on treeless plains. Again, from the point of view of a carnivorous animal hunting for food by daylight and by sight, no two countries could be more alike than the open karoos of the Cape Colony and the plains in the neighbourhood of Lakes Nakuru and Elmenteita in British East Africa, where the grass is always kept very short by the large herds of game, as well as by the cattle, sheep, and goats belonging to the Masai, which pasture there. Before the advent of Europeans, the carnivorous animals inhabiting the Cape Colony were exactly the same as those found to-day in East Africa, viz. lions, leopards, chetahs, wild dogs, and hyaenas. In both districts lions were once numerous, and in both zebras formed the principal food of these carnivora. But whereas Bqtms granti, the form of zebra found on the plains near Lake Nakuru, is the most brilliantly coloured representative of the genus to which it belongs, with jet black stripes on a pure white ground, the now extinct form of zebra — Equus qjiagga — which once abounded on the plains of the Cape Colony, was of a dull grey brown in ground colour, with darker brown stripes on the head, neck, and fore- part of the body alone. Now, these two races of zebras, both living on bare, open plains, could not both have been coloured in the best possible way to escape being seen by the lions which constantly preyed upon them. If, as has been contended, the juxtaposition of the black and white stripes in Grant's zebras renders these animals not only inconspicuous, but almost invisible under strong sunlight on an open plain, and is, in fact, the 6 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. supreme triumph of protective coloration in large mammals, why had the quaggas of the Cape Colony become dull brown, for they also lived on open plains in strong sunlight, and needed protection from the lions every bit as much as their congeners of East Africa ? Moreover, I think all naturalists and embryologists are agreed that Equus quagga was the descendant of boldly striped ancestors. To my mind the loss of stripes in the quagga was entirely due to the environment in which this species had lived for long ages ; for on the karoos of the Cape Colony everything is of one dull brown colour, whether on hill or plain, and no shade is to be found anywhere, for the whole country is without trees. The air, too, is intensely hot and dry, and the rainfall scanty. In these semi-deserts of South-Western Africa, not only did the quaggas lose their black stripes, but the elands also lost the white stripes of their immediate ancestors, whilst the blesboks had already lost much of the white to be seen in the body colouring of the bonteboks, from which they are descended, and had become of a much duller colour generally. In East Africa, however, the plains are surrounded by well-wooded hills, which give some colour to the landscape, whilst the rainfall every year is heavy. If it is not the influence of their several environ- ments which has brought about the differences between the well-striped elands and zebras of East Africa and their dull-coloured relatives that once lived in the karoos of the Cape Colony, the theory of protective coloration must be equally at fault, for in spite of the fact that in both countries both races of these animals have been hunted by lions from time immemorial on open plains, and under precisely similar conditions, they developed very different schemes of coloration. The Barbary sheep, again, which inhabits the dry THE SARDINIAN MOUFFLON hills borderingr the deserts of Northern Africa, where the vegetation is parched and scanty at all seasons of the year, and the rocks of a red brown colour, is itself of a uniform reddish brown which harmonises exactly with its surroundings, and makes it very difficult to detect when lying at rest amongst rocks. This perfect harmony of coloration with its surround- ings in the Barbary sheep may have been brought about by the need of protection from enemies, but seems to me far more likely to have been caused by the influence of the colour of its environment, for its four-footed foes hunt by scent and by night far more than by sight during the daytime. The male moufflon of Sardinia, which lives in a temperate climate where the colours of its surround- ings are much brighter and more diversified than is the case in the habitat of the Barbary sheep, is a much more conspicuously coloured animal than the latter, or than the females of its own kind. As the females and young of the Sardinian moufflon, which are of a uniform brown colour, are more difficult to see than the males in their somewhat conspicuous autumn and winter coats, the latter cannot be said to be protectively coloured. Either through the influence of sexual selection or that of an environ- ment the general colour of which varies very greatly at different seasons of the year, the male of the Sardinian moufflon becomes during autumn and winter conspicuously coloured compared with the female, without detriment, however, to the well- being of the species. During my long sojourn in the interior of South Africa, I made large collections of butterflies. There was one species [Precis artaxia, Hewits) which always puzzled me. This handsome insect is only found in shady forests, is seldom seen fly- ing until disturbed, and always sits on the ground amongst dead leaves. Though handsomely coloured 8 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. on the upper side, when its wings are closed it closely resembles a dead leaf. It has a little tail on the lower wing which looks exactly like the stalk of a leaf, and from this tail a dark brown line runs through both wings (which on the under sides are light brown) to the apex of the upper wing. One would naturally be inclined to look upon this wonderful resemblance to a dead leaf in a butterfly sitting with closed wings on the ground amongst real dead leaves as a remarkable instance of pro- tective form and coloration. And of course it may be that this is the correct explanation. But what enemy is this butterfly protected against ? Upon hundreds of different occasions I have ridden and walked through the forests where Precis artaxia was numerous, and I have caught and preserved many specimens of these butterflies, but never once did I see a bird attempting to catch one of them. Indeed, birds of all kinds were scarce in the forests where these insects were to be found. I now think that the form and colour of the under wings of Precis m^taxia have more probably been produced by the influence of its environment than by the need for protection. During the rainy season in South Africa, the open glades in the forests bordering the rivers are gay with multitudes of brightly coloured butterflies of many different species, and after a night's rain butterflies of various kinds may often be seen settling in masses round pools of water along waggon roads. Most of these butterflies are conspicuously coloured, though they are in perfect harmony with the sunlit flowers which spring up at the time of year when they appear. I cannot, however, believe that the need for protection against birds or other enemies has had anything whatever to do with the deter- mination of their various colours, as in all my experience (and I have been all my life a close GIRAFFES AND MUSK OXEN observer of nature) I have never once seen a bird feeding upon butterflies in Africa. The coloration of certain animals in the Arctic and sub-Arctic Regions is somewhat remarkable, as at certain seasons it is conspicuously out of harmony with its surroundings, and cannot therefore be pro- tective. The musk ox retains it dark brown coat the whole year round, although it lives almost con- stantly amidst a snowy environment. Mr. Wallace tells us that the reason why the musk ox does not turn white is because it has no enemies to fear, and therefore has no need of a protective coloration. He says : " Then we have that thoroughly Arctic animal the musk sheep, which is brown and con- spicuous ; but this animal is gregarious, and its safety depends on its association in small herds. It is therefore of more importance for it to be able to recognise its kind at a distance than to be con- cealed from its enemies, against which it can well protect itself so long as it keeps together in a com- pact body." As, however, according to the experi- ence of Arctic travellers, large numbers of young musk oxen are annually killed by wolves, this ex- planation of a case in which an animal is manifestly not protectively coloured does not seem altogether satisfactory. Mr. Wallace, it may be noted, calls special attention to the coloration of the giraffe, which he considers to be protective ; yet nothing, I think, is more certain than that a far smaller percentage of giraffes are killed annually by lions in Africa than of musk oxen by wolves in Arctic America. If this is so, the musk ox has more need of protective coloration than the giraffe. The musk ox is, I think, the only one' amongst the few truly Arctic mammals which does not turn white during the winter months, for, unlike the barren g'round caribou, it does not migrate southwards in the autumn to the dark spruce forests, which change 10 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. of habitat no doubt has had an influence on the colour of the latter animals ; since Peary's caribou, the most northerly form of the genus, whose habitat lies far within the Arctic Circle, where trees of any kind are non-existent, is almost absolutely white in colour. In spite, however, of the fact that the caribou inhabiting Ellesmere Land and the adjacent land masses are white, and therefore harmonise well in colour with the snowy wastes amongst which they live, they form the principal food of the white wolves inhabiting the same regions, which hunt them by scent and run them down just as easily as the grey and black wolves of Alaska capture the dark -coloured and very conspicuous caribou which frequent the mountain ranges of that country. It appears to me that the colour of a caribou's coat, whether it be white, black, or brown, cannot afford it any protection against wolves, which probably possess as keen a sense of scent as any animals in the world, and must surely hunt entirely by scent during the long dark months of the Arctic winter. If this is so, then the great diversity in the coloration of the various species of caribou in- habiting the North American Continent must be due to some other cause than the necessity for protection against wolves, practically their only four-footed enemies. Speaking of other Arctic animals, Mr. Wallace believes that the Arctic fox of necessity turns white in winter in order to enable it to capture the white Arctic hares upon which it chiefly lives. V^ery little, however, is known as to the life-history of these two animals. But if the Arctic foxes hunt by scent, as they almost certainly do, during the constant dark- ness of the long Arctic winter, and the hares burrow beneath the snow, and are caught as a rule when completely hidden from sicjht below its surface, I think it is arguable that the influence of environment I ALASKA AND THE YUKON TERRITORY ii has been at least as potent a factor in bringing about the white coloration of these animals in winter as the necessity for protective coloration. At any rate, in Alaska and the Yukon Territory of Canada, where the country is covered with snow for more than half the year, and where the hares are white throughout the long winter, the foxes are red, black, or a mixture of these two colours, all the year round, and the lynxes grey ; yet these two species of carnivorous animals depend almost entirely on the hares for their food supply. It is somewhat remarkable that in the sub-Arctic forests of Alaska and the Yukon Territory, where the cold is intense and the ground covered with snow for so many months of every year, only the hares and the stoats amongst mammals turn white in winter. But in these countries the land is covered for the most part with dark spruce forests, the influence of which — if there is anything in the influence of environ- ment— may have been greater in determining the coloration of the mammals of this district than that of the snow-covered ground. During winter in the Yukon Territory, moose turn very dark in colour on the under parts of the body, and at this season of the year leave the thick forests and live in the comparatively open valleys amongst willow and birch scrub, where they are said to stand out like haystacks amidst their snowy surroundings. The local race of caribou [Rattgi/er osborni), which live all the year round on the treeless mountain plateaus, are very dark in colour (with the exception of their necks), and, as I myself can testify, stand out very plainly when the open ground they frequent is covered with snow. Of the various races of wild sheep inhabiting the mountains of Alaska, the Yukon Territory, and Northern British Columbia, some are white all the year round, and therefore very conspicuous in summer when there is no snow 12 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. on the ground, though difficult to detect in the winter ; some are grey, with white heads, necks, and rumps ; whilst others are nearly black, and there- fore very conspicuous in winter. Of the predatory animals the large timber wolves are, as a rule, pale greyish brown with black hairs on their backs and shoulders, but a considerable number are quite black ; the foxes are either red or black, or of the inter- mediate coloration known as "cross"; whilst the wolverines, martens, and minks are rich dark brown, and the lynxes neutral grey. The stoat or ermine is the only carnivorous animal which turns white in winter in these countries. It would thus appear that in the sub- Arctic Regions of North America the coloration of mammals does not obviously serve the purpose of concealing the herbivorous species from their enemies, or of en- abling carnivorous animals to approach their prey unperceived. To come nearer home, we find that whereas in the Alpine regions of Europe the mountain hare turns white in winter, the chamois living in the same snow-covered ground becomes deep black. It is true that in winter chamois often leave the open mountains and live amongst the higher forests, where it may be said that their dark colour harmonises well with the dark foliage of the spruce trees ; but I have hunted chamois in December in the mountains of Transylvania, when they were in full winter coat, and I certainly found that their dark coloration often made them conspicuous. Turning to Africa, we have many instances of what seen in the open and at short range cannot possibly be called anything but conspicuous colora- tion, such as the jet black and pure white striping of the East African form of Burchell's zebra ; the deep glossy black body and neck, with snow-white belly and parti-coloured face, of the sable antelope ; THE INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENT 13 the black and white face of the gemsbuck ; the pure white face and rump of the bontebok, combined with the beautiful dark brown neck and sides and lilac tinted back ; or the juxtaposition of the black and white in Thomson's g-azelle — only to mention a few of the most noteworthy examples. To me it seems that the influence of environ- ment might very well be deemed sufficient of itself to cause all animals that have lived for long ages in treeless deserts under constant strong sunlight to assume the dull brown coloration which they undoubtedly possess ; whilst Arctic conditions might be expected to cause the whitening of an animal's hair in the winter, or the play of the sun's li.^ht through the leaves and branches of trees and bushes to be responsible for a spotted or striped coat. In the case of a combination of black and white — the two most conspicuous colours in nature — such as may be seen in the adult cock ostrich or male sable antelope, why should it not be supposed that the law of sexual selection has come into play, as it probably has done in the production of the lion's mane and the exaggerated size of the horns in the male koodoo. Having spent many years of my life in the constant pursuit of African game, I have certainly been afforded opportunities such as have been enjoyed by but few civilised men of becoming intimately acquainted with the habits and life-history of many species of animals living in that continent, and all that I have learnt during my long experience as a hunter compels me to doubt the correctness of the now very generally accepted theories that all the wonderfully diversified colours of mammals — the stripes of the zebra, the blotched coat of the giraffe, the spots of the bushbuck. the white face and rump of the bontebok, to mention only a few — -have been evolved either as a means of protection 14 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. from enemies or for the purpose of mutual recogni- tion by animals of the same species in times of sudden alarm. Sexual selection and the influence of environment must, I think, have been equally potent factors in the evolution of colours in mammals, birds, reptiles, and insects. In all recent articles which I have read by well- known naturalists on these subjects, it appears to be assumed that both carnivorous and herbivorous animals trust entirely to their sense of sight, the former to find their prey, and the latter to detect and avoid the approach of their enemies. Yet nothing is more certain than that all carnivorous animals hunt almost entirely by scent, until they have closely approached their quarry, and usually by night, when all the animals on which they prey must look very much alike as far as colour is concerned. The wild dogs of Africa and the wolves of northern latitudes are not so completely nocturnal, it is true, as the large Felidae, but the former I know, and the latter I have every reason to believe, hunt, as a rule, by night and only occasionally in the daytime. In both these animals the sense of smell is enormously developed, and must be of far greater use to them in procuring food than the sense of sight, however acute that may be. In all my wanderings I have only seen African wild dogs chasing game in the daytime on four occasions. I once saw a single wild dog chasing a sable antelope in the daytime. This wild dog — which was, however, then too far away to enable me to see what it was — first ran past the sable antelope and behind it from where I was watching. It must then have been running on the trail, with its nose on the ground, and must have passed quite close to the animal it was pursuing without seeing it. Its nose, however, kept it on the antelope's tracks and soon brought it I THE EYES OF ANTELOPES 15 to close quarters, and then of course it continued the chase by sight. Now if this is the usual pro- ceeding of African wild dogs, and I am convinced that it is, the value of assimilative coloration to animals on which the wild dog preys cannot be very great. But not only do all carnivorous animals hunt by scent, and rely far more upon their olfactory organs than upon their keenness of sight to procure food, but, as all practical hunters very well know, the sense of smell is also very highly developed in all, or at any rate in most, of the animals on which the carnivora prey, and personally I am persuaded that all browsing and grazing animals in Africa trust as much to their noses as to their eyes both to avoid danger and to find members of their own species. The eyes of antelopes are quick to detect a moving object, but they are by no means quick to notice any unusual colour in a stationary object. I will relate an anecdote illustrating this point. Early in 1883, I reached the spot on the Hanyani river in Mashunaland where I intended to establish my hunting camp for the season. Whilst my Kafirs were chopping down trees to build the cattle en- closures, I climbed to the top of the ridge at the foot of which I was having my camp made. It was late in the afternoon, and I was sitting on a rock looking over the open country to the south, when I heard a slight noise, and turning my eyes saw a fine male waterbuck coming towards me up the ridge. I sat perfectly still, and it presently walked slowly past within three yards of me and then went on along the ridge, into the forest beyond. As it passed me I noticed its shining wet nose, and the way in which its nostrils kept constantly opening and shutting at every step. It was evidently listening to the noise that my Kafirs were making chopping down small trees at the foot i6 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. of the ridge, but as it could not get their wind did not take alarm. Of course, if I had made the very slightest movement, this waterbuck would have seen me instantly ; but had it possessed much sense of colour, the contrast between the red brown of my sunburnt arms and face and the light-coloured shirt I was wearing would have attracted its attention, as I was sitting on a stone, on the top of a ridge which was quite free from trees or bush. I have never had any other African antelopes pass so close to me as this without seeing me, but many have fed slowly past me, as I sat watching them, with a tree or a bush behind me but nothing between myself and them, at distances of from 20 to 50 yards. Both in Newfoundland and in the Yukon Territory of Canada, I have had caribou walk almost over me when sitting in front of them on their line of march on ground devoid of any cover whatever. In such cases, of course, the wind was blowing from these animals towards where I was sitting, and I remained absolutely motionless. As a rule, when wild animals notice something suspicious approaching, say a man on horseback, and cannot get the scent of it, they run off before it gets near them or circle round to try and get the wind of it. But the smaller African antelopes, steinbucks, duikers, oribis, and reedbucks will occasionally, while keeping their eyes fixed on the unfamiliar object, crouch slowly down, and then, with their necks stretched along the ground, lie watching. I have ridden past a few oribis, stein- bucks, and reedbucks within a few yards, as they lay absolutely motionless on the ground watching me. To pull in one's horse with the intention of shooting such a crouching antelope was the instant signal for it to jump up and bound away. Lions too, when they see a human being and imagine I LIONS APPROACHING GAME 17 that they themselves have not been observed, will often lie flat on the ground watching, and will not move until very closely approached. I imagine that these carnivora secure nearly all their prey by approaching herds of game below the wind, and when they have got pretty near lying flat on the ground, perfectly motionless except for the twitching of the end of their tails, which they never seem able to control, and then waiting till one or other of the unsuspecting animals feeds close up to them, when they rush upon and seize it before it has time to turn. If a lion, however, fails to make good his hold with one of his forepaws over the muzzle of a buffalo or one of the heavier antelopes, and cannot fix his teeth in their throats or necks, they often manage to throw him off and escape. It is perhaps worthy of remark that I have never known a case of one of the larger antelopes trying to escape observation by lying down. Gemsbucks, roan and sable antelopes, elands, koodoos, hartebeests, indeed all the large African antelopes, directly they see anything suspicious, face towards it, and stand looking at it, holding their heads high, and not in any way shielding their bodies and only exposing their faces to view, which, when marked with black and white, as in the case of the gemsbuck and roan antelope, are supposed, though quite erroneously, to render these animals invisible, I am inclined to think, but it is only my personal opinion, that the difficulty of seeing w^ld animals in their natural surroundings has been greatly ex- aggerated by travellers who were not hunters, and whose eyesight therefore, although of normal strength, had not been trained by practice to see animals quickly in every kind of environment. I am quite sure that to a South-African Bushman c 1 8 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. there is no such thing as protective coloration in nature. If an animal is behind a rock or a thick bush, he of course cannot see it, but his eyes are so well trained, he knows so exactly the appearance of every animal to be met with in the country in which he and his ancestors have spent their lives as hunters for countless ages, that he will not miss seeing any living thing that comes within his range of vision no matter what its surroundings may be. Bantu Kafirs are often called savages, and their quickness of sight extolled ; but Kafirs are not real savages, and though there are good hunters amongst them, such men will form but a small percentage of any one tribe. To realise to what a pitch of perfection the human eyesight can be trained, not in seeing immense distances but in picking up an animal within a moderate range immediately it is physically possible to see it, it is necessary to hunt with real savages like the Masarvva Bushmen of South-Western Africa, who depend on their eyesight for a living. Now, if carnivorous animals had throughout the ages depended on their eyesight for their daily food as the Bushmen have done, which is what naturalists who believe in the value of protective coloration to large mammals must imagine to be the case, surely their eyesight would have become so perfected that no colour or combination of colours could have concealed any of the animals on which they habitually preyed from their view. As a matter of fact, however, carnivorous animals hunt as a rule by scent and not by sight, and usually at night when herbivorous animals are moving about feeding or going to drink. At such a time it appears to me that the value of a coloration that assimilated perfectly with an animal's natural sur- roundings during the daytime would be very small as a protection from the attacks of carnivora which hunted by night and by scent. I RESTLESSNESS OF WILD ANIMALS 19 Reverting again to the question of quickness of eyesight, I will say that, although a Boer or an English hunter can never hope to become as keen- sighted as a Bushman, his eyes will nevertheless improve so much in power after a few years spent in the constant pursuit of game, that the difficulty of distinguishing wild animals amongst their native haunts will be very much less than it was when he first commenced to hunt, or than it must always be to a traveller or sportsman who has not had a long experience of hunting. However difficult an animal may be to see as long as it is lying down or standing motionless, as soon as it moves it becomes very apparent to the human eye ; and, as I have had ample experience that any movement made by a man is very quickly noticed by a lion, leopard, hyaena, or wild dog, I am quite sure that all these carnivora, if lying watching for prey by daylight, would at once see any animal moving about feeding anywhere near them ; and all herbivorous animals move about and feed early in the mornijig and late in the evening, the very times when carnivorous animals would be most likely to be looking for game by daylight. During the heat of the day carnivorous animals are very seldom seen, as at that time they sleep, and most herbivorous animals do the same. But even when resting, wild animals are seldom motion- less. Elephants and rhinoceroses are constanth- moving their ears, whilst giraffes, elands, buffaloes, zebras, and other animals seldom stand for many seconds tosfether without swishino: their tails. All these movements at once attract the attention of the trained human eye, and I am very sure would be equally apparent to the sight of a lion or a leopard, were these animals to hunt by sight and during the daytime. But, speaking generally, they do not do so, though doubtless should antelopes or other 20 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. animals unconsciously feed close up to where a lion happened to be lying resting and waiting for night before commencing active hunting, he would very likely make a rush and try and seize one of them if he could. Upon two occasions I have had my bullocks attacked in the middle of the day, once by a single lioness, and on the other occasion by a party of four lions, two lions and two lionesses. But how many old hunters have seen lions actually hunting in the full light of day ? Personally, in all the long years I was hunting big game in Africa — years during which I must have walked or ridden manv thousands of miles throusfh countrv full of game, and where lions were often numerous — I only once saw one of these animals hunting by daylight. This lion was pursuing four koodoo cows on a cool cloudy winter's morning. As a rule, lions do not commence to hunt before darkness has set in. They then seek their prey by scent, either smelling the animals directly or follow- ing their tracks. They understand as well as the most experienced human hunter the art of approach- ing game below the wind, when hunting singly ; but when there are several lions hunting together, I believe that some of them will sometimes creep close up to a herd of game below the wind, whilst one or more of their number go round to the other side. The buffaloes, zebras, or antelopes at once get the scent of these latter, and run off right on to the lions lying waiting below the wind, which then get a good chance to seize and pull down one of the frightened animals. As lions have played this game with my cattle upon several occasions, I presume that they often act in the same way with wild animals. No matter how dark the night may be, a lion has no difficulty in seizing an ox, a horse, or a donkey exactly in the right way, and I have no BURCHELL'S ZEBRAS 21 doubt that he does the same in the case of all the different kinds of game upon which he preys. Now that the buffaloes have been almost exterminated by the rinderpest in most parts of Africa, the zebra undoubtedly forms the favourite food of the lion. For every zebra that is killed by daylight probably at least a hundred are killed during the night, when, except by moonlight, they would appear to a lion very much the same, as far as coloration goes, as a black ox, a dark grey wildebeest, or a red hartebeest, all of which animals look black by night if they are near enough to be seen at all. I have had innumerable opportunities of looking at wild zebras, and when met with on open ground they certainly have always appeared to me to be very conspicuous animals, except just at dawn and late in the evening, when they are not so easy to see as animals of some uniform dark colour, such as hartebeests. In Southern Africa, between the Limpopo and the Zambesi rivers, Burchell's zebras used to be very plentiful in all the uninhabited parts of the country, and although they were often met with feeding or resting in districts covered with open forest or scattered bush, I found them always very partial to open ground, where they were as plainly visible as a troop of horses. In East Africa the local race of Burchell's zebra is remarkable for the whiteness of the ground colour of the body and the intense blackness of the superimposed stripes. These beautiful animals conofreirate in laro;e herds on the bare open plains traversed by the Uganda Railway, and probably form the chief food of the lions livini; in that district. When in East Africa a few years ago, I took special note of the appearance of zebras at different distances on the open plains between Lakes Nakuru and Elmenteita. I found that in the bright African 22 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. sunlight I could see with the naked eye the black and white striping of their coats up to a distance which I estimated at about 400 yards. Beyond that distance they looked of a uniform dark colour when the sun was behind them, and almost white when the sun was shining on them. But at what- ever distance they happened to be on the open plain between myself and the horizon, their forms showed up quite as distinctly as those of a herd of cattle or horses. Never in my life have I seen the sun shining on zebras in such a way as to cause them to become invisible or even in any way inconspicuous on an open plain, and I have seen thousands upon thousands of Burchell's zebras. Should these animals be approached when standing amongst trees with the leaf on, they are not at all easy to see, and the whisking of their tails will probably be the first thing to catch one's eye ; but in open ground, and that is where they are usually met with, no animals could be more conspicuous. I have seen zebras too by moonlight, but that was many years ago, and I did not then take any special note of their appearance ; but my impression is that they were no more invisible than other animals, but looked whitish in colour when the moon was shining on them, and very dark when it was behind them. As, however, zebras have a very strong smell, and lions usually hunt them by scent and at night, I cannot think that their coloration, whether it be conspicuous or not, matters very much to them, though I look upon the theory that the brilliantly striped coats of these animals render them in reality inconspicuous as absolutely untenable, as it is not in accordance with fact. When in East Africa I came to the conclusion that not only the zebras, but also the impala ante- lopes— which are of a much richer and darker red than in South Africa — were conspicuously coloured. I CONSPICUOUS COLORATION 23 and therefore very easy to see ; whilst the broad black lateral band dividing the snow-white belly from the fawn-coloured side in Thomson's gazelles showed these little animals up with the most start- ling distinctness on the bare open plains they inhabit. To my eyes, and in the bright sunlight of Africa, the juxtaposition of black and white markings, so often seen on the faces of African antelopes, has never seemed to produce an indistinct blur of colour except at a considerable distance. At any distance up to 300 yards the black and white face-markings of the gemsbuck, the roan, and the sable antelope always appeared to me to be distinctly visible, and they have often been the first parts of these animals to catch my eye. It is all very well to say that a male sable ante- lope, in spite of its bold colouring, is often very difficult to see. That is no doubt the case, but that only means that there is no colour in nature, and no possible combination of colours, which at a certain distance, if stationary, would not be found to harmonise well with some portions of, or objects in, an African landscape. Speaking generally, however, the coloration of a sable antelope bull makes him a very conspicuous object to a trained human eye, and also, one would suppose, to that of a carnivorous animal, were it watching for prey b)- daylight. CHAPTER II FURTHER NOTES ON THE QUESTIONS OF PROTECTIVE COLORATION, RECOGNITION MARKS, AND THE IN- FLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENT ON LIVING ORGANISMS Occasional resemblance of African mammals to natural objects — Hartebeests — Elephants — Giraffes — Coloration of the Somali giraffe — (iiraffes not in need of a protective coloration — Koodoos and sable antelopes — Acute sense of hearing in the moose — Possible explanation of large size of ears in the African tragela- phine antelopes — Coloration of bushbucks, situtungas, and inyalas — Leopards the only enemies of the smaller bush-haunt- ing antelopes — Recognition marks — Must render animals con- spicuous to friend and foe alike — Ranges of allied species of antelopes seldom overlap — Hybridisation sometimes takes place — Wonderful coloration of the bontebok — Coloration distinctly conspicuous and therefore not protective — Recognition marks unnecessary — Coloration of the bJesbok— The blesbok merely a duller coloured bontebok — Difference in the habitat of the two species — The coloration of both species may be due to the influence of their respective environments- The weak point in the theory of protective coloration when applied to large mammals — Hares and foxes in the Arctic and sub-Arctic Regions — The efficacy of colour protection at once destroyed by move- ment— Buffaloes and lions — General conclusions regarding tlie theory of protective coloration as applied to large mammals. Certain observations have been made and theories propounded on the occasional resemblance of African mammals to natural objects, which have never seemed to me to have much significance, although they are often referred to as valuable observations by writers on natural history. Thus it has been said that hartebeests, which are 24 CHAP. II HARTEBEESTS 25 red in colour, derive protection from their enemies owing to their resemblance not only in colour but also in shape to ant-heaps, and that giraffes gain an advantage in the struggle for life owing to the fact that their long necks look like tree-trunks and their heads and horns like broken branches. Well, hartebeests are red in colour wherever they are found all over Africa. Ant-heaps are only red when they are built of red soil. In parts of the Bechwanaland Protectorate, where the Cape harte- beest used to be common, the ant-heaps are a glaring white. In East Africa, in different portions of which territory hartebeests of three species are very numerous, all of which are bright red in colour, red ant-heaps are certainly not a conspicuous feature in all parts of the country, and there were, if my memory serves me, very few ant-heaps of any size on the plains where I met with either Coke's, Neumann's, or Jackson's hartebeests.^ But even in those districts where the ant-heaps are red in colour, and neither very much larger nor smaller than hartebeests. they are usually of one even rounded shape, and it would only be here and there, where two had been thrown up together forming a double - humped structure, that anything resembling one of these animals could be seen. Such unusual natural objects must be anything but common, and cannot, I believe, have had any effect in determining the bodily shape of hartebeests, though, if the coloration of animals is influenced by their environment, red soil and red ant-heaps may have had their influence on the colour of the ancestral form from which all the various but nearly allied species of hartebeests have been derived. I was once hunting in 18S5 with a Hocr friend ' Tlu* plains .ilong the railway line l)cl\VL'en Siinha ami Nairobi, llic open country liclween Lakes Xakuni and I-'.lmenteita, or the neii^hhourhood of the road between Laniliani and Ravine S'.ation. 26 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. (Cornelis van Rooyen) near the Umfuli river in Mashunaland. We were riding slowly along, fol- lowed by some Kafirs, and driving a donkey carry- ing corn for the horses in front of us, when we saw what we took to be some boulders of black rock in the open forest ahead, but some distance away, as we were crossing an open valley at the time. In this particular part of the country great boulders of black rock were a common feature in the landscape. Suddenly our donkey pricked his ears, and stretch- ing out his nose, commenced to bray loudly. Im- mediately one of the black rocks, as we had thought them to be, moved, and we soon saw that what we had taken for rocks were elephants. Our donkey had smelt them before either my friend or myself or any of our Kafirs had been able to distinguish what they were. As, however, elephants are only occasionally encountered in forests through which great boulders of black rock are scattered, I do not believe that these huge quadrupeds have been moulded to the shape of rocks by the need of a protective resemblance to inanimate objects, any more than I think that the abnormal shape of certain ant-heaps has had anything to do with the production of the high wither and drooping hind- quarters of the hartebeest. As to the theory that the long neck and the peculiarly formed head of the girafie have been evolved in order to protect this remarkable animal against its carnivorous foes, by giving it the appear- ance of a dead or decayed tree, I personally consider such an idea to be so fantastic and extravagant as to be unworthy of serious consideration. In the course of my own hunting experience, I have shot a great many giraffes to obtain a supply of food for my native followers, and under the guidance of Bushmen have followed on the tracks of many herds of these animals until I at Ic-ngth sighted them. II BUSHMEN AND GIRAFFES 27 In certain parts of the country frequented by giraffes in Southern Africa, large camel-thorn trees {Acacia giraffae) grow either singly or a few together amongst a wide expanse of wait-a-bit-thorn scrub, which is from 6 to 12 feet high. From time to time these large trees die and decay, until nothing is left but a tall straight stem, standing up like a tele- graph pole (only a good deal thicker) amongst the surrounding scrub. When, whilst following on giraffe spoor through such country, something suddenly comes in view protruding from the bush, perhaps a mile ahead, the Bushmen will stop and take a good look at it. Of course at a very great distance it is impossible for even a Bushman to distinguish between the tall straight stem of a dead tree stand- ing- up out of low bush and the neck of a solitary old bull giraffe. But if the latter, it is sure soon to move, unless it is standing watching its human enemies approaching, in which case it will not be very far away, and I have never known a Bushman to mistake a giraffe for a tree at any reasonable distance. As regards the coloration of the species of giraft'e inhabiting South and South-Western Africa, it assimi- lates very well with its surroundings, when amongst trees and bush ; but as giraffes spend a great deal of their time passing through open stretches of country on their way from one feeding-ground to another, they are often very conspicuous animals. With respect to the Somali giraffe {Giraffa reticu- lata), a photograph taken by the photographer who accompanied one of Lord Delamere's expeditions, showing some of these animals feeding amongst mimosa trees, gives the impression of a most marvellous harmonisation of colour and arrange- ment of marking with their surroundings. But I cannot help thinking that the facts of the case have been very much exaggerated in this photograph, 28 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. which has eliminated all colours from the picture except black and white. In life, the foliage of the mimosa is very thin, and I think it probable that the rich dark chestnut blotches divided by white lines of the Somali giraffe would show through it at least as distinctly as would the colours of the southern giraffe in a like position. The Somali giraffe cannot constantly live amongst mimosa trees, as these only grow in valleys near streams or dried- up watercourses, and only cover a small proportion of any country I have yet seen either in South or East Africa. I must say that I rather distrust the camera as a true interpreter of nature, as I have seen so many photographs of the nests of small birds in bushes in which it was very difficult even for a trained eye to find the nest at all, although in all probability it would have been comparatively easy to detect these nests in the actual bushes in which they were placed. Speaking of the Somali giraffe, Colonel J. J. Harrison, in a footnote to a photograph of one of these animals shot by himself right out in open country, which appeared in the Bystander for January 30, 1907, says: "These handsome coloured giraffes are very striking when seen standing in the sun. Of a rich bright chestnut colour, with pure white rings, they stand out splendidly as compared with the dull grey colouring of the more southern giraffe." However, it appears to me that to whatever extent the coloration of the various races of giraffes harmonises with their surroundings, that result must have been brought about by the influence of their environment rather than by the need of protective coloration, for I cannot believe that the struggle for life against the attacks of carnivorous animals can have been sufficiently severe to have influenced the II LIONS AND GIRAFFES 29 colour and the arrangement of markings in giraffes. That lions occasionally attack and kill giraffes is an undoubted fact, and, as I shall relate in a subsequent chapter, I have also known a case of a very young giraffe having been attacked by two leopards ; but in South Africa giraffes are found in the greatest numbers in those parts of the country where, except during the rainy season, there is very little surface water, and where other species of game are far from plentiful Into such districts lions do not often penetrate, and when giraffes are found in country where there is plenty of water, zebras, buffaloes, and antelopes of various kinds will also be numerous, and these animals will certainly be preyed upon in preference. At any rate, my own experience would lead me to believe that althoucrh lions can and do kill giraffes upon occasion, they do not habitually prey upon these animals. Moreover, when giraffes are killed by lions, they are in all probability followed by scent and killed in the dark. Altogether, the theory that the colour of the giraffe has been evolved by the necessity for con- cealment and protection from the attacks of car- nivorous animals does not seem to me to be at all well supported by the life-history of that animal as seen by a practical hunter ; but the fact that the coloration of this remarkable animal assimilates very well with the dull and monotonous shades of the trees and bushes in the parched and waterless districts it usually frequents, is a strong argument in favour of there being a law which, working through the ages, tends to bring the colours of all organic beings into harmony with their surround- ings, irrespective of any special benefit they may receive in the way of protection from enemies by such harmonious coloration. Turning to the striped and spotted forest ante- lopes inhabiting various parts of Africa, I think 30 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. there is some misconception amongst naturalists who have not visited that country as to the general surroundings amongst which the various species live. The magnificent koodoo, with his long sj)iral horns, striped body, spotted cheeks, nose marked with a white arrow, and throat adorned with a long fringe of hair, is often spoken of as an inhabitant of dense jungle. This is, however, by no means the case, for although koodoos are never found on open plains, they are, on the other hand, seldom met with in really dense jungle. The range of the koodoo to the south of the Zambesi extends farther to the south and west than that of the sable antelope, but I think I am justified in saying that up to the time of the deplor- able visitation of rinderpest in 1896, wherever, between the Limpopo and the Zambesi, sable antelopes were to be met with, there koodoos were also to be found, and outside of districts infested by the " tse-tse " fly, excepting amongst rocky hills, I have never met with the latter animals in any country where I was not able to gallop after them on horseback. Living as they do in surroundings so very similar to those frequented by sable antelopes, I have never been able to understand why koodoos should have such much larger ears than the former animals. I have never been struck with the acute sense of hearing in koodoos as I have been in the case of the moose of North America, and I should scarcely think that this sense would often save them from the noiseless approach of such animals as lions or leopards, to which they very fn^quently fall a prey, judging by the number of the remains of koodoo bulls which I have found that had bc-en killed by the former animals. I have often wondered whether the large size of the ears observable in the African tragelaphine ante- II KOODOOS AND BUSHBUCKS 31 lopes, which are all forests dwellers (with the exception of the situtunga, which lives in dense beds of reeds), may not be useful to them by enabling the males and females to hear one another's calls during the mating season. The large ears and exquisite sense of hearing of the moose, which is also a forest- dwelling animal, have undoubtedly been developed for the purpose of enabling the males and females to find one another in the breeding season, and not for protection against the attacks of wolves. I have frequently lieard both koodoos and bushbucks calling by night and also in the early morning. The noise they make is a sort of bark or cough. Antelopes inhabiting open plains are very gregarious, and in the daytime would always be able to find their mates by sight. I have never heard them making anything but low grunting noises. As it is often assumed by naturalists that all bush-haunting species of antelopes have very large ears, it is perhaps worth noticing that in the little blue buck and the red bush duiker of South- East Africa, which both live in dense jungle near the coast, the ears are very small ; whilst in the steinbuck, on the other hand, which is always found in very open country and never in thick bush, the ears are very large — both long and broad. The coloration observable in the different races of bushbucks inhabiting different localities, as well as in the situtunga and inyala antelopes, is, I think, very interesting and suggestive. It may, I think, be taken for orranted that all the races of African bushbucks have been derived from an ancestral form which was both striped and spotted ; but in the bushbucks found near the coast of the Cape Colony and Natal, the adult males are deep dark brown in colour, often absolutely devoid ot any white spots or stripes on face or body, whilst the adult females are yellowish red, with only a few 32 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. white spots on the flanks. Now these most southerly of the African bushbucks Hve in really dense bush, and often in deep ravines, where the sun never penetrates. Their habitat too being near the sea-coast, the climate must be damper than in the interior of the continent. In the northern parts of Mashunaland and along the Central Zambesi and Chobi rivers the bushbucks live in forest and bush which is seldom very dense, and through most of which the sunlight plays constantly. In these districts the males are, when adult, beauti- fully striped and spotted, and the ground colour of their coats is rich red and dark brown, the females being of a dark rich red and also well striped and spotted. The situtunga antelopes live (on the Chobi and Central Zambesi) in immense beds of reeds which are always of one dull monotonous greyish green or brown. The adult animals are, as might be ex- pected by those who believe in the direct influence of environment, of a uniform light brown colour, except that the spots on the cheeks and the arrow- shaped mark across the nose, present in most tragelaphine antelopes, are still discernible. In the inyala antelope, which inhabits thick jungly tracts of bush along the south-east coast of Africa, the adult male is of a deep dark grey in general body colour, with a few scarcely visible vertical white stripes. The young males and the adult females are, however, of a brilliant light red colour, profusel)' striped and spotted with white. The young of all bushbucks and of the inyala are reddish in ground colour, striped and spotted with white. The foetal young of the situtunga found in the marshes of the Chobi are of the colour of a dark moleskin beautifully banded and spotted with pale yellow, and it is, I think, a very remarkable fact that these stripes and spots are identical in position with those found on the adult Chobi bushbuck, which is strong II BUSHBUCKS, INYALAS, & SITUTUNGAS 33 evidence, I think, that both these animals are descended from one ancestral form. Now the only animal that preys habitually on bushbucks, inyalas, and situtungas is the leopard, and as leopards hunt by night and by scent, I cannot believe that the very different outward appearance of the various races of bushbucks inhabiting different parts of Africa is to be accounted for by the theory of protective colora- tion. The males and females of the Cape bushbuck and of the inyala antelope are very different one from another in the colour of their coats, but this does not seem to be prejudicial to either sex, though there is absolutely no difference in their habits or their habitat. In all the different races of bushbucks, however, with which I am acquainted, the males are much darker in colour than the females, so that it is not so very surprising that in the case of the inyala and the Cape bushbuck the males should have been the first to lose their stripes and spots in a sombre environment. In the case of the Cape bushbuck the adult females have already lost all the stripes and most of the spots of the ancestral form. The female inyala is, how- ever, one of the most distinctly striped and spotted representatives of the tragelaphine group. I cannot see that facts support the opinion that the uniform dull brown coloration of both sexes of the southern race of situtunga has been brought about for the purpose of protection from carnivorous enemies. During the daytime these animals live in the midst of beds of reeds i^rovving in water where they cannot be approached except by wad- ing ; but at night they are often killed by leopards, and perhaps sometimes by lions, whilst feeding just outside the reed beds, on open ground which has perhaps been recently swept by a veld fire, and where young reeds and grass are just sprouting. D 34 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. At such a time their actual colour can be of no more use in the way of protecting them from their keen-scented feline foes than if it were black or red or grey. To me it seems far more probable that the situtunga has gradually lost the stripes and spots of the ancestral form from which it is derived, and assumed a uniform dull brown colora- tion, because it has lived for ages amongst reed beds of one dull monotonous colour, than because a uniform brown coat affords it a special protection against carnivorous foes. I gather from the writings of Mr. A. R. Wallace and other well-known naturalists that, whereas the coloration of all animals is supposed to be due to the need of protection from carnivorous beasts, many species have developed in addition what are known as recognition marks, to enable them to distinguish members of their own species from nearly allied forms, or to help them to quickly recognise and rejoin the members of the herd or family from which they may have been separated. That many large mammals belonging to different genera, and living in widely separated parts of the globe, are marked with conspicuous patches of white on the rump, neck, or face, or throw up bushy tails when running, showing a large white under surface, is an indisputable fact, though it is not possible to say that the possession of such a conspicuous colora- tion is absolutely necessary to the well-being of any particular species, because there will nearly always be other species livino;- in the same country, and subject to the attacks of the same predatory animals, in which these so-called recognition marks are absent. However, on the supposition that carnivorous animals hunt by sight, it seems to me that no animal can be said to be protectively coloured which is marked in any way so conspicu- ously as to be recognisable by others of its own RECOGNITION MARKS 35 species at a distance, for it would be equally recognisable by all predatory animals, and caribou and white-tailed deer or African antelopes cannot escape from wolves or wild dogs by running like rabbits into burrows. Personally, I cannot see why large antelopes which live in herds on open plains should require special recognition marks, as in such localities the bulk of an animal's whole body would be plainly visible at a great distance no matter what its colour might be. If an antelope became separated from its fellows by night, all so-called recognition marks would be invisible at a very short distance. It must be remembered, however, that every species of animal has a peculiar and very distinctive smell of its own, and my own observations would lead me to believe that most wild animals recognise one another, as a rule, more by scent than by sight. It seems difficult to believe that there can be any truth in the theory suggested by Mr. Wallace, that recognition marks have been developed in certain species of large mammals because they are necessary to enable nearly allied species of animals to know their own kind at a glance, and so prevent interbreeding ; for the ranges of very nearly allied forms of one genus, such as the various species of hartebeests and oryxes, or the bontebok and the blesbok, very seldom overlap, and so each species keeps true of necessity and without the help of special recognition marks. Where the ranges of two nearly allied species do overlap interbreeding probably will take place. There seems little doubt that the species of hartebeest known as Neumann's hartebeest has interbred with Jackson's hartebeest in certain dis- tricts where the ranges of the two species meet. In the neighbourhood of Lake Nakuru, in British East Africa, I shot, in February 1903, a hartebeest 36 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. which was not a Jackson's hartebeest, but which closely resembled an animal of that species in the character of its horns and the measurements of its skull, whilst all the others in the same herd appeared to be true Neumann's. I have known too of one undoubted case of the interbreeding of the South African hartebeest (/>. Caama) with the tsessebe [Damalisciis hoiatus). This animal (an adult male) was shot by my friend Cornelis van Rooyen in Western Matabele- land, where the ranges of the two species just overlap. In coloration it was like a tsessebe, but had the comparatively bushy tail of the hartebeest, whilst its skull and horns (which are, I am glad to say, in the collection of the Natural History Museum at South Kensington) are exactly intermediate between those of the two parent species. This skull has been very unsatisfactorily labelled " sup- posed hybrid between B. Caama and D. lunaius.'' But as, when I presented it to the Natural History Museum, I gave at the same time a full description of the animal to which it had belonged, which I got from the man who actually shot it, there is no supposition in the matter. If the skull and horns in question are not those of a hybrid between the South African hartebeest and the tsessebe, then they must belong to an animal still unknown to science. There is, I think, no large mammal in the whole world whose coat shows a greater richness of bloom and a more abrupt contrast of colours than the bontebok, so called by the old Dutch colonists of the Cape because of its many coloured hide, for boni means spotted, or blotched, or variegated. The whole neck, the chest, the sides and under parts of the head, and the sides of the body of this re- markable antelojje arc of a rich dark brown, and the central part of the back is of a beautiful purple 11 BONTEBOKS AND BLESBOKS 37 lilac ; whilst, in strong contrast to these rich dark colours, the whole front of the face, a good -sized patch on the rump, the whole belly, and the legs are of a pure and brilliant white. In life, and when they are in good condition, a wonderful sheen plays and shimmers over the glossy coats of these beauti- fully coloured animals, which fully atones for the want of grace and refinement in the shape of their heads and the heavy build of their bodies. Now, a practical acquaintance with the very limited extent of country in which the bontebok has been evolved, and where the survivors of the race still live, makes it quite impossible for me to believe that the extraordinarily brilliant colouring of this species of antelope can have been gradually developed in order to make it inconspicuous and therefore difficult of detection by carnivorous animals, nor can I believe that it has been evolved for the purpose of mutual recognition between individuals of the species ; for although the snow- white blaze down the face or the white rump patch might very well subserve such a purpose, I see no necessity, looking to the habitat and the habits of the bontebok, for special recognition marks. Now, before proceeding further, I think I ought to say a word as to the points of resemblance and the differences between the bontebok and its near ally the blesbok. In the latter, the wonderful contrasts of colour to be seen in the former are considerably toned down ; but the difference between the two species is merely superficial. The general body colour of the blesbok is dark brown, but not so dark as on the neck and sides of the bontebok, and the delicate purply lilac colour of the back in the latter species is altogether wanting in the former. In the blesbok, too, the colour of the rump just above the tail, which in the bontebok is snow-white, is brown, 38 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. though of a paler shade than any other part of the body. In the blesbok, too, the white face " blaze " is not continuous from the horns downwards as in the bontebok, but is interrupted above the eyes by a bar of brown. The legs, too, in the blesbok are not so white as in the bontebok, and whilst the horns of the latter species are always perfectly black, in the former they are of a greenish colour. In a word, the differences between the bontebok and the blesbok are confined to the intensity of the colours on various portions of their hides, the former being much more brilliantly coloured than the latter. Owing to the fact that the early Dutch settlers at the Cape first met with the antelopes which they called bonteboks on the plains near Cape Agulhas, and subsequently at first gave the same name to the nearly allied species which was discovered about one hundred years later in the neighbourhood of the Orano^e river, althoug-h these latter were un- doubtedly blesboks and not bonteboks, a great con- fusion arose between these two nearly allied species, which I think that I was the first to clear up, in the article on the bontebok which I contributed to the Great and Sinall Game of Africa, published by Rowland Ward, Limited, in 1899. I cannot go into all the arguments I then used, but there can be no doubt that the animals which Captain (after- wards Sir Cornwallis) Harris first met with on the bontebok flats near the Orange river, in the Colcsburg division of the Cape Colony, were blesboks and not bontel:)oks, and that all the millions of antelopes of the same species which he subsequently saw to the north of the Orange river and thought to be bonteboks were also all blesboks, and that he never saw a bontebok at all until after his return to the Cape, when he made a special journey to Cape Agulhas to secure specimens of II AN EXCEPTIONAL ENVIRONMENT 39 that species, as he was " anxious to ascertain whether the animal rigorously protected in the neighbour- hood of Cape Agulhas differed in any respect from that found in the interior, as pretended by the colonists.'' I think myself that the correct determination of the true distribution of these two nearly allied species of antelopes is of the utmost importance to the question as to the influence of environment on the coloration of animals. I imagine that the white- faced bontebok was evolved from the same ancestral form as the topi and the tiang of East and Northern Africa, for the new-born bontebok as well as the blesbok has a blackish brown face, and I believe — however fan- tastic this belief may appear to be — that the wonder- fully rich and varied coloration of this remarkable antelope has been brought about purely through the influence of its exceptional environment. The plains where these animals live lie along the shore of a deep blue sea, the ground beneath their feet is at certain seasons of the year carpeted with wild flowers, which grow in such profusion that they give a distinct colour to the landscape, whilst above them rises a range of mountains of a considerable altitude, the upper parts of which are often covered with a mantle of pure white snow. I cannot imagine how any one who has seen bonteboks on the plains they inhabit can believe that their white rumps, faces, bellies, and legs, contrasting as they do so vividly with the dark rich brown of their sides and necks, can afford them any protection against their carnivorous foes ; nor, although a white rump or face is a conspicuous mark, can I see the necessity of recognition marks for animals which live on open plains where the vegetation is short, and where an animal's whole body can be seen at a long distance. In the blesbok, which also lives on open plains, 40 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. the white rump patch so conspicuous in the bonte- bok has become pale brown, as, I think, through the influence of the dull monotonous colours of the dreary, dull -coloured country in which it lives. Ages ago no doubt the bontebok spread north- wards through the karroo into the countries beyond the Orange and the Vaal rivers, but the gradual desiccation of the whole of South-Western Africa, which has been going on for a very long time, must have gradually driven all the bonteboks outside the Cape peninsula northwards to the Orange river, and completely separated them from their relatives still living near Cape Agulhas. These latter have retained all their richness of coloration brought about by the influence of their very striking sur- roundings, the deep blue of the sea, the snow on the mountains, and the bloom of innumerable wild flowers. The northern herds moved into open plains, in themselves very similar to the plains near Cape Agulhas, but they are never carpeted with wild flowers, nor are they skirted by a deep blue sea, nor ever overlooked by snow-covered mountains. Is it not possible that the differences which exist to-day between the coloration of the bontebok and the blesbok are entirely the result of the absence of any kind of colour but various monotonous shades of brown in the countries in which the latter species has now been living for a long period of time ? Not only has the rich and beautifully variegated body colouring of the bontebok become an almost uniform dark brown in the blesbok, but the snow- white disc on the rum{) of the former animal has turned to a pale brown in the latter, whilst the area of white on the face and legs of the bontebok has already been considerably contracted in the blesbok. Personally, I look upon the blesbok as a faded bontebok ; faded because it moved northwards out II THE ARCTIC WINTER 41 of the richly coloured environment in which it was first evolved into the dull -coloured plains of its present habitat, where it subsequently became isolated owing to the desiccation of the intervening country. Could the opening up of Africa by the destructive civilised races have been delayed for a few hundred or a few thousand years, the blesbok would no doubt have lost the white blaze down the face as com- pletely as it has lost the white disc over the tail, which is so conspicuous a feature in the coloration of its immediate ancestor, the bontebok. To those who believe that every spot or stripe or patch of colour on every animal is a beautiful illustration of the truth of the theory of protective coloration, this may seem a very fanciful idea. Yet I feel convinced that the influence of environment has played a greater part than is generally believed in the evolution of colour in living organisms. The weak point in the theory of protective coloration when applied to large mammals is the fact that all carnivorous animals are nocturnal and seek their prey habitually by night and by scent, and only occasionally by daylight and by sight. I submit that the beautiful case in the Central Hall of the Natural History Museum at South Kensington — showing an Arctic fox, in its white winter coat, approaching a Polar hare, also in winter dress, and an ermine (stoat) hunting for [)tarmigan (evidently by sight) — gives an entirely false view of the struggle for life as carried on by animals inhabiting the Arctic Regions, for it conveys the idea of the carnivorous animals of those snow- covered wastes hunting for their prey in a bright light and by eyesight alone. But the truth is that the Arctic winter, during the long continuance of which all living resident creatures, with the exce[)tion of the nuisk ox, become 42 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. white,^ is one long night, in the gloom of which the wolves and the foxes and the ermines (stoats) search for and fmd their prey by scent alone, just as foxes, stoats, and weasels do in this country. As long as a hare gives out any scent at all, a fox will be able to follow and find it. The fact that the hare has turned white in the snow-covered ground in which it is living will not help it as long as it throws out the scent of its species, nor can it be shown that the foxes of the sub- Arctic regions, which never turn white in winter, have any greater diffi- culty in approaching and killing the white hares on which they live than the white Arctic foxes experience in catching the Polar hares. There is one other point regarding the protec- tion afforded by colour to large mammals against carnivorous foes which I think has not been sufficiently considered by naturalists, and that is, that no matter how well the colour of an animal may harmonise with its surroundings as long as it remains perfectly still, as soon as it moves " it jumps to the eyes," as the French say, no matter what its colour may be. What is called protective colora- tion to be effective must be motionless. Movement, even very slight movement, at once destroys its efficacy. But no herbivorous animals can remain constantly motionless. They lie down and rest certainly during the heat of the day, which is, however, just tlie time when all carnivorous animals are sleeping. At night and in the early mornings and late evenings they move about feeding, and it is at such times that carnivorous animals hunt for their prey. In the dark these latter an^ undoubtedly ' I do not admit that the raven i> a truly Arctic bird. Naiison, in Fartfus! .\orth, although he kejit careful rcrords of all the birds si-cn during the three years his expedition lasted, never mentions havinq; seen a raven, wliich I believe has only penetrated into the Arctic Regions, as an excursionist, in com- paratively recent times, following the whaling ships, and living on the carcases of I he wliales and seak killed. II THE CAPE BUFFALO 43 guided by scent and not by sight, and I cannot see that it matters much to them whether ihe beasts on which they prey are black or red or grey or spotted or striped ; whilst, if they should happen to be still hunting after daylight, any antelopes or other animals feeding and moving about within their range of vision would at once be seen whatever their colour might be. Every old hunter knows how easy it is to overlook any animal, no matter what its colour or surroundings, as long as it is motionless, and how easy it is to see it as soon as ever it moves. I have never yet heard any explanation given of the black, and therefore most conspicuous, coloration of the Cape buffalo. If any animals needed pro- tective coloration buffaloes certainly did, for in the interior of South Africa they formed the favourite food of the lion, and enormous numbers of them must have been annually killetl by these powerful carnivora, which seemed to live with and follow the larger herds in all their wanderings. It certainly seems very strange to me that giraffes, which are very seldom killed by lions or other carnivora, should have found it necessary to evolve a colour which harmonises with their sur- roundings, as a protection against such foes, whilst buffaloes, which in many districts used once to form the principal food for the lions living in the same countries, have retained throughout the ages a coloration which is everywhere e.xcept in deep shade singularly conspicuous. Altogether, a very long experience of the larger mammals inhabiting Africa and some other parts of the world has convinced me that neither the nc-ed of protection against carnivorous foes nor the theory of recogni- tion marks can satisfactorily explain all the wonderful diversity of colour to be seen in the coats of wild animals. CHAPTER III NOTES ON THP: LION The lion — Native names for — Character of — Death of Ponto- Picture in Gordon Cumming's book — Death of Hendrik- Number of natives killed by lions- — Usual mode of seizure — A trooper's adventure — Poisonous nature of lion's bite — Story of the Tsavo man-eaters — Death of Mr. Ryall — Story of the tragedy — Precautions by natives against lions — Remains of a lion's victim found — Four women killed — Lion killed — Carcase burned — Story of the Majili man-eater — Man-eating lions usually old animals — Strength of lions — Large ox killed by single lion — Buffaloes killed by lions — Ox slowly killed by family of lions — Lions usually silent when attacking and killing their prey — Camp approached by three lions — Various ways of killing game — Favourite food of lions — Giraffes rarely killed by lions — Evidence as to lions attacking elephants — -Michael Engelbreght's story — Mr. Arnot's letter describing the killing of an elephant cow by six lions. Of all the multifarious forms of life with which the great African Continent has been so bountifully stocked, none, not even excepting the "half-reason- ing elephant" or the "armed rhinoceros," has been responsible for such a wealth of anecdote and story, or has stirred the heart and imagination of mankind to such a degree, as the lion --the great and terrible meat-eating cat, the monarch of the African wilderness, by night at least, whose life means constant death to all his fellow-brutes, from the ponderous buffalo to the light-footed gazelle, and fear, and often destruction too, to the human inhabitants of the coimtries through which he roams. 44 CHAP. Ill A TERRIFYING BEAST 45 How often has not the single word "Simba," " Tauw," " Shumba," " Silouan," or any other native African synonym for the Hon, sent the blood tingling through the veins of a European traveller or hunter ; or when whispered or screamed in the darkness of the night in a native village or encampment, brought terror to the hearts of dark-skinned men and women ! When met in the light of day, a lion may be bold and aggressive, retiring, or even cowardly, according to its individual character and the circum- stances under which it is encountered ; but no one, I think, who has had anything like a long experience of the nature and habits of these great carnivora can doubt that by night, particularly on a dark rainy night, a hungry lion is a terrible and terrifying beast to deal with. One day towards the end of the year 1878, my friend Mr. Alfred Cross left our main camp on the Umfuli river in Mashunaland, and taking an empty waggon with him, went off to buy corn at some native villages about twenty miles distant. That same afternoon he outspanned early near a small stream running into the Umfuli, as a heavy thunderstorm was threatening. A kraal was made for the oxen, behind which the Kafir boys arranged a shelter for themselves of boughs and dry grass as a protection from the anticipated downpour of rain. They also collected a lot of dry wood in order to be able to keep up a good fire. The waggon-driver, a native of the Cape Colony, made his bed under the waggon, to the front wheel of which Mr. Cross's horse was fastened. As one of the hind oxen kept breaking out of the kraal, it was tied up by itself to the hind yoke close in front of the waggon. The trek chain, with the other yokes attached to it, was then stn^tched straight out along the ground in front o\ the waggon. Soon after dark the thunderstorm, 46 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. which had been gathering all the afternoon, burst forth with terrific violence. The rain fell in sheets, soon extinguishing the fires that had been lighted by the Kafirs, and the blinding flashes of lightning which continually lit up both heaven and earth with blue-white light were quickly succeeded by crashing peals of thunder. The storm had lasted some time and the rain had almost ceased, when the ox which was tied up all alone to the after yoke of the waggon began to jump backwards and forwards over the disselboom — the waggon pole. Cross, who was then lying down inside the waggon, raised himself to a sitting position, and whilst calling to the ox to quiet it, crawled forward, and raising the fore sheet, looked out. Just then a vivid flash of lightning lit up the inky blackness of the night just for one brief moment. But the brilliant light revealed to my friend every detail of the surrounding landscape, and showed him with startling distinctness the form of a big male lion lying flat on the ground not ten yards in front of the frightened ox, which it would probably already have seized, had it not been for Cross's loud shout- ing. The lion had been no doubt creeping silently towards its would-be prey, which had already become aware of its proximity, when my friend's voice caused it to halt and lie flat on the ground watching. By this time Cross's dog, a well-bred pointer, which had been lying on the driver's blankets under the waggon, had become aware that something was wrong — though the lion was no doubt making its approach against the wind — and was standing just behind the ox. growling. Directly the position of the lion was revealed to him by the lightning, Cross seized his rifle, and calling to the waggon-driver to jump up and hold his horse, took aim in the direction of the crouching Ill ALAS! POOR PONTO 47 brute, waiting for another flash of lightning. This was not long delayed, and showed the lion still lying flat on the ground close in front of the waggon. Cross fired at once. Encouraged by the report of the rifle, poor Ponto rushed boldly forward, past the terrified ox, into the black night, barking loudly. A yelp of fright or pain suddenly succeeded the bold barking of the dog, and poor Ponto's voice was stilled for ever. He had rushed right into the lion's jaws, and had been instantly killed and carried off. Fires were then made up again, but the lion, apparently satisfied with a somewhat light repast, did not give any further trouble. On the following morning Cross could find no part of Ponto but the head. All the rest of him had apparently been eaten. I remember even to - day, and with perfect distinctness, thoug^h I have not seen it for manv years, a certain picture in Gordon Cumming's well- known book on African hunting, and the fearful fascination it always had for me when I was a small boy. That picture represented a great gaunt lion in the act of seizing one of the hunter's Hottentot servants — poor Hendrik — as he lay asleep by the camp fire ; but it left to the imagination all the horror and agony of mind suffered by the poor wretch, when so rudely awakened at dead of night and swiftly dragged away into the darkness to a cruel death, in spite of the gallant attempts of his comrades to save him. During the sixty odd years that have elapsed since this tragedy was enacted on the hanks of the Limpopo, many a similar incident has taken place. Some of these occurrences have come within the knowledge of, and been described by, European travellers and hunters, yet these have been but isolated cases, and can only represent a very small percentage of the number of natives that have been 48 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. dragged away from iheir camp fires, or even killed in their huts, by hungry lions within recent times. As a rule, I think, a lion seizes a sleeping man by the head, and in that case, unless it is a very old and weakly animal, death must be usually in- stantaneous, as its great fang teeth will be driven into the brain through the thickest negro skull. I have known of two instances of men having been seized at night by the shoulder. This, I think, is likely to happen to a sleeping man lying on his side with one shoulder raised, especially if his recumbent form should happen to be covered with a blanket, in which case the most prominent part of him would very likely be mistaken by a lion for his head. In the early 'nineties of the last century, two troopers of the British South Africa Company's Police started one afternoon from the neighbourhood of Lo Magondi's kraal to ride into Salisbury, the capital of Mashunaland, a distance of about seventy miles. They rode until dark, and then off- saddling their horses, tied them to a tree, and after having had something to eat and cooked a pot of tea, lay down by the side of the camp fire they had kindled, intending to sleep until the moon rose and then continue their journey by its light. About midnight, however, and when it was very dark, for the moon had not yet risen, a prowling lion came up to their lonely bivouac, and, disregarding their horses, seized one of them by the shoulder and at once dragged him away into the darkness. His companion, awakened by his cries, quickly realised what had happened, and snatching up his rifle, ran to his friend's assistance and fired two or three shots into the air in quick succession. This so startled the lion that it dropped its i:)rospective supper and made off. The wounded man, it was found, had received a severe bite in the shoulder Ill THE TSAVO MAN-EATERS 49 when the lion first seized him, but fortunately had not suffered any further injuries, and was able to proceed with his friend to Salisbury as soon as the moon had risen. He had to be sent to the Hos- pital on his arrival there, as, although his hurts were not very serious, any wound inflicted by the teeth of a lion is, as a rule, very difficult to heal unless carefully attended to at once and cauterised with a strong lotion of carbolic acid. Dr. Livingstone has described how he suffered for years from the bite of a lion ; and I have myself seen wounds from the teeth of one of these animals in a horse's neck, which had never been properly attended to, still suppurating thirteen months after they had been inflicted ; whilst, on the other hand, I have seen wounds from the bite of a lion, which were cauterised at once, heal up very quickly and never reopen. Of all the lion stories that I have ever heard or read, I think none equals in dramatic interest the thrilling narrative of Mr. J, H. Patterson's^ experi- ences with two man-eaters during the construc- tion of the Uganda Railway in 1898. This very remarkable story, a brief account of which I first read some years ago with the most absorbing interest in the Field newspaper, has now, I am glad to say, been incorporated in the record of his experiences in East Africa which Colonel Patterson has recently published under the title of The Man- Eaters of Tsavo. Mr. Patterson (as he then was) at last succeeded in ridding the country of both of these dread beasts, but not before they had killed and eaten twenty-eight Indian coolies employed upon the construction of the Uganda Railway, and caused such a panic through the country-side, that at one time it looked as if the building of the railway would have to be abandoned altogether for the time being. ' This gentleman greatly distinguished himself in the late South African War, and is now Lieut. -Col. Patterson, D.S.O. E 50 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. The death of Mr. C. H. Ryall, the Assistant Superintendent of the East African Police Force, who was killed by a man-eating lion inside a rail- way carriage on the Uganda Railway, is also a most interesting episode, as it shows how extra- ordinarily bold a hungry lion may become, when in search of prey during the hours of darkness. When in East Africa a few years ago, I met both the other two Europeans (Mr. Huebner, a German, and Mr. Parenti, an Italian) who were in the carriage with Mr. Ryall when he was killed, and I heard the story of the tragedy from their lips. The railway carriage in question, which con- tained a small saloon and an adjoining servants' compartment, had been pulled on to a siding, close to a small station on the Uganda Railway, in order to give its occupants the chance of getting a shot at a man-eating lion which had lately been giving trouble in the neighbourhood — either as it came prowling about during the night or by hunting it up the next morning. There was a small window on each side of the little saloon, and a sliding door at the end of the carriage. Both the windows and the door were wide open. Mr. Ryall took the first watch, and seems to have taken up a position on one of the seats of the carriage, with his back to the open window. His head and shoulders would therefore probably have been visible to the eyes of a nocturnal animal from outside. Mr. Huebner turned in and went to sleep on one of the top berths in the carriage, and Mr. Parenti made his bed on the floor. It is probable, I think, that Mr, Ryall also went to sleep after a time. What happened afterwards I will now relate as it was told to me by Mr. Parenti. " I was awakened from a sound sleep by the sensation of a weight holding me down on the floor, and for a moment was unable to move. Then the weight was taken Ill MR. RYALL KILLED BY LION 51 off me, and I raised my head with a jerk. My face immediately came in contact with a soft hairy body, and I became conscious of a disagreeable smell. In an instant I realised that there was a lion in the railway carriage, and that at that moment it was killing poor Mr. Ryall, as I heard a sort of gurgling noise, the only sound he ever made." Mr. Huebner seems to have awakened at the same time, and to have at once jumped down on to the floor of the carriage, where he and Mr. Parenti and the lion were all mixed up together. At this time the weight of the lion and the struggling men combined slightly tipped the carriage to one side, causing the sliding door to close automatically, and thus materially increasing the horror of the situa- tion. Mr. Parenti, as soon as he could collect his thoughts, made his escape from the carriage through the open window opposite to the one against which poor Mr. Ryall had been sitting when the lion seized him, and Mr. Huebner burst open the door com- municating with the smaller compartment occupied by Mr. Ryall's two Indian servants, who, having become aware that there was a lion in the other room with the "Sahibs," were holding the door against the crowd with all their strength. Mr. Huebner, however, who is a heavy, powerful man, soon overcame their resistance. To do it justice, this lion does not seem to have had any wish to make itself unnecessarily disagree- able. It wanted something to eat, but, having got hold of Mr. Ryall, seems never to have paid the smallest attention to any one else. In all proba- bility, I think, it had seen its victim's back and head from outside against the open window, and, coming round to the open door, had entered the carriage and made straight for him, treading on Mr. Parenti's sleeping form as it crossed the floor. It seized Mr. Ryall l)y the throat just under the jaw, and must 52 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. have reared itself up, probably resting its fore-paws on the seat of the carriage, to have done so. Mr. Ryall must have been killed by the first bite almost instantaneously, as he never seems to have struggled or made any noise but a low gurgling sound. The windows of the carriages on the Uganda Railway are small, but after havinp;; killed Mr. Ryall, this lion — a big male — succeeded in carrying off his body through the comparatively small opening. It probably never relaxed its hold on his throat until it had got his dead body safely out of the carriage and pulled it away to some distance. The half-eaten remains of the unfortunate man were recovered the next day nearly a mile away from the railway carriage in which he had met his death ; but the lion was nowhere to be found, and in spite of a large reward offered for its destruction, it was some time before this bold and dangerous beast was disposed of At last, however, it was caught alive in a big cage-trap made by a Mr. Costello, who at that time was the station-master at Makindu, on the Uganda Railway. After having been photographed, this lion was shot. This photograph was shown me by Mr. Costello himself, who told me that the captured animal was old and mangy, with very worn teeth and claws, and a short, scrubby mane. He thought that there could be no reasonable doubt that it was the lion that had killed poor Mr. Ryall, but of course nobody can be absolutely certain on this point. Natives living in very small communities, in wild districts where game being still abundant, lions also are consequently fairly numerous, are often troubled at night by these animals. In such cases a man-eating lion usually proves to be an old and almost worn-out beast, which having grown too weak to catch and kill its usual prey, has been driven by hunger to approach the haunts of men. Ill DEFENCE AGAINST LIONS 53 Urged on by its desperate need, such a lion knows no fear, and will not hesitate to enter a small native village or even to force its way into a hut in search of food. In 1879, whilst hunting elephants in the country to the east of the Chobi or Quito river, I met with a very primitive tribe of natives living in families or very small communities in isolated villages along the bank of the river. Their huts were of the flimsiest description, being formed of a light frame- work of poles, over which a few grass mats had been stretched ; but the two or three, up to half a dozen, ill-made huts which formed each village were always surrounded and protected by a carefully made stockade, the poles forming which were all sharpened at the end and hardened by having been charred in the fire, and so placed that they slanted outwards and would have been very difficult to surmount from the outside. The natives informed me that they had taken this trouble as a defence against lions. One morning, in this same district, I came upon most of the skeleton of a man who had been killed and eaten by a lion a few days before. He had evidently been sitting or lying by a fire when caught, and had probably been overtaken by darkness when on his way from one village to another. This man's spears lay close to his bones, so that he must have been holding them in his hand when he was seized. None of my Kafirs would touch them. Apparently it was not etiquette to meddle with the belongings of a dead man, though I think that most of the members of my retinue would not have been above stealing anything they might have found lying about, belonging to a live one. In April 1878 a lion entered a small Banyai village near the river Umay, in Northern Matabele- 54 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. land, a short time after I had left it, and, not being able to make its way into any of the huts through the small doorways, all of which had been very carefully barricaded, climbed on the roof of one of them, and tearing away the grass thatching, forced its way in from the top. There were three or four women inside the hut, and it killed them all ; but, having gorged itself, was apparently unable to make its escape through the roof again, and was speared to death by the men of the village the next morning through the framework of the hut, after the mud plaster had been removed in places. A native servant of my own, whom I had left behind in this village, was present when this lion was killed, and he told me that, as soon as it was dead, a huge bonfire was built, on which the carcase of the man-eater was thrown, and the fire kept up until it was quite consumed. The most cunning and destructive man-eating lion — probably because it was not an old and weakly animal, but in the prime of life — that I ever heard of in South Africa was one which once haunted the neighbourhood of the Majili river, a tributary of the central Zambesi from the north. I gave some account of the doings of this bold and ferocious beast in the course of an article which I contributed to the pages of the Forhiightly Review some twenty years ago, and as I have the kind permission of the editor and proprietor of that publication to do so, I will now retell the story as I originally heard it from one of my own native servants shortly after the occurrences related took place. In the early part of 1886 two half-caste elephant- hunters, Henry Wall and Black Jantje — the latter for several years both before and after this time a trusted servant of my own — crossed the Zambesi at its junction with the Quito or Chobi, in order to Ill »THE LION'S HERE!' 55 hunt elephants in the country to the north between the MajiH and Ungwesi rivers. They soon heard from the natives that there was a man-eating hon in the district which had already killed several people, and they were therefore careful to see that a strong fence was made every night behind their camp, and sufficient dry wood collected to keep up good fires during the hours of darkness. The two half-civilised hunters were accustomed to sleep by themselves within a strong semicircular fence, the open end of which was protected by a lar^e fire. All but one of their native boys — wild Batongas and Masubias — slept together, lying in a row with a strong fence behind them and a succession of fires near their feet. The boy who would not sleep with the others, always lay by one or other of the fires by himself. One night, Henry Wall, who was a very light sleeper, and had perhaps been dreaming of lions, was awakened, as he afterwards declared, by the sound of a low growl or purr close to him. Springing to his feet, he shouted out, " De leeuw is hier!" ("The lion's here!") ; "wake up, Jantje!" But Jantje and all the Kafirs were fast asleep, and it was not until they had been awakened and questioned that it was discovered that the man who had been lying by one of the fires all alone was gone. Where he had gone and why was not left long in doubt, for almost immediately a lion was heard eating his remains close behind the encampment. Henry Wall and Jantje at once fired in the direction of the sound, on which the lion retired to a safer distance with its prey. As soon as it was broad daylight, the hunters took up the spoor of the lion, which was, they told me, quite easy to follow through the dewy grass. It was not long before they saw it walking slowly along with its head half-turned, holding the dead 56 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. man by one shoulder, so that his legs dragged at its side. As soon as it became aware that it was being followed, it dropped its prey, and wheeling round, stood looking at its pursuers, twitching its tail and growling angrily. Henry Wall, who was a very good shot and a cool and courageous man, now tried to fire, but the old, clumsy, muzzle-loading elephant gun he was using only snapped the cap. At this juncture Jantje, who was a little to one side, was unable to fire because there was a bush in his way, and before Henry Wall could get another cap on the nipple of his gun, the Kafir who carried his second weapon fired at and missed the lion, which instantly turned and, running into a patch of bush, made good its escape. On examination, it was found that the dead man had been seized by the head. He must have been killed instantaneously, as the two upper canine teeth had been driven through the top of the skull, whilst one of the lower ones had entered beneath the jaw and broken the bone. During the night the corpse had been disembowelled and all the flesh eaten off the thighs and buttocks. A few days later, a native family was attacked not far from the scene of the episode I have just recounted, and almost certainly by the same lion. All over Africa, wherever game is plentiful, it is customary for the natives, at the season when their crops are ripening, to build huts in their fields, in which they spend the night and endeavour to keep buffaloes, elephants, and all kinds of antelopes out of their corn by shouting and beating tom-toms. The huts are often built on the top of platforms raised ten or twelve feet above the ground and reached by a ladder. The native family in question occupied two huts-— a large one built on the ground Ill 'THAT'S THE LION AGAIN!' 57 and a small one on the top of a platform. The large hut was occupied by a woman and her two children, whilst her husband kept watch alone in the little open hut above. One night the dread man-eater of the Majili came prowling round, and scenting the native on the platform, either sprang up and seized him with its teeth, or more probably, I think, half clambered up by the help of the ladder, and dragged him from his shelter with its claws. At any rate, it bore him to the ground and speedily killed him, but not before he had made a good deal of noise, as reported afterwards by his children. His wife, awakened by the cries of her husband, opened the door of her hut and rushed out, leaving the two children inside. The lion at once left the man, who was then dead, and seizing the woman, quickly killed her. It never returned to the body of the man at all, but ate all the fleshy parts of the woman, retiring into the bush before daylight, and never revisiting the corpses. All through the dry season this lion kept the natives in the neighbourhood of the Majili river in a constant state of alarm, and whilst adding steadily to the number of its victims, baffled every attempt made to hunt it down and destroy it. After having been away for some months, hunting elephants in the country farther north, Henry Wall and Black Jantje once again camped on the Majili river on their way back to the Zambesi, and for the second time the man-eater paid them a visit. This time Jantje was awake, and hearing, as he told me, a low purring growl, jumped up, calling out, " Daat's de leeuw wieder ! " (" That's the lion again ! "). At the same time one of the Kafirs stood up holding his hand to his head. "What's the matter with you?" asked Jantje, going up to him. 58 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. " I don't know," answered the man ; "something hit me on the head." At this moment Jantje saw by the light of the fire blood runninsf down his neck, and called out, " Wake, wake, it was the lion I heard ! Wake, wake, and see if every one is here ! " It soon appeared that one of the Kafirs was missing, and this is no doubt what had happened. The lion must have crept or sprung in amongst the slee[)ers, and seizing one of them by the head, must have killed him instantly and carried him off. But in doing so it must have struck the man lying next him on the head with one of its paws, and inflicted a slight scalp wound with one of its claws. The body of the man who had been carried ofi^ was not recovered, because, as Henry Wall and Jantje told me, the rest of the Kafirs would give them no assistance in following up the lion the next day. This dangerous man-eater was at last mortally wounded by the spears of two young men whom it attacked in broad daylight close to a small native village. One of these youths died the same evening from the mauling he received in the en- counter, but he had driven his spear into the lion's chest when it attacked him, and his companion had also struck it in the side with a licrht throwinfj spear. The next day, all the men from the two or three little villages in the neighbourhood turned out and followed up the bloody tracks of i-he wounded lion. They had not far to go, for the grim beast lay dead, with the two spears still sticking in it, within a short distance from the spot where it had attacked the two young men the previous day. As is the custom when man-eating lions are killed in the interior of Africa, a great quantity of dry wood was then collected, and a huge fire lighted, on which the carcase was thrown and utterly consumed. There is one rathc^r curious fict in con- Ill BUFFALO KILLED BY LION 59 nection with the history of this notorious man- eating lion which I omitted from the first account I wrote of its doings, but which I will now relate, as it is of interest. Soon after dark on the night of the second attack on their camp, Henry Wall and Jantje and all their boys heard the sudden rush of an affrighted herd of buffaloes, which had been feeding in the open ground between their camp and the Majili river. Suddenly there was the loud and agonised bellow of a buffalo in pain and terror, and they all knew that one of these animals had been seized by a lion. The following morning they found a buffalo cow lying dead not two hundred yards from their camp, with its head twisted in under it and its neck dislocated. It had the claw- marks usual in such cases over the muzzle and on the shoulder, showing the manner in which it had been seized, but after having been killed it had not been touched. The tracks of the lion, however, led from the carcase of the buffalo to the hunters' camp, and I think that there can be no doubt that it was the same animal which killed the buffalo that a few hours later carried off a human being. If so, it proves two things. Firstly, that this man- eating lion must have been in its prime, for it requires a strong and vigorous male lion to kill a full-grown buffalo cow or a heavy bullock neatly and quickly by breaking its neck ; and secondly, that it preferred human flesh to that of a buffalo. It must either have seen the gleam of the camp fires for the first time immediately after it had killed the bufialo, and abandoned the carcase in the hope of obtaining more succulent food, or, if it was aware of the neighbourhood of the hunters' camp before it attacked the buffalo, it must have killed the latter out of sheer mischief. Though similar cases of lions becoming confirmed man-eaters when in the prime of life and still in the 6o AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. enjoyment of their full strength and vigour do from time to time occur — the celebrated Tsavo man-eaters which played such havoc amongst the construction camps on the Uganda Railway were reported to have been far from old — yet it cannot be denied that in the vast majority of cases a lion only takes to killing human beings in its declining years, and when its strength is failing. On this subject, Dr. Livingstone wrote many years ago : " A man-eater is invariably an old lion, and when he overcomes his fear of man so far as to come to villages for goats, the people remark, ' His teeth are worn, he will soon kill men.' They at once acknowledge the necessity of instant action and turn out to kill him." Speaking generally, nothing truer could have been written than these sentences ; but there are exceptions to every rule, and when a strong and vigorous lion does take to preying upon human beings, it is naturally not so easy to hunt down and destroy as would be an old and weakly beast, whose "teeth are worn." An adult male lion is probably possessed cif greater strength in proportion to its size and weight than any other African animal. It will kill with astonish- ing ease and dexterity a full-grown buffalo cow or the heaviest bullock, and probably sometimes a buffalo bull or a giraffe. I never remember, how- ever, to have seen the carcase of an old buffalo bull that had palpably been killed by a single lion, whilst I have shot several buffalo bulls that had escaped from lions after receiving very severe wounds from their teeth and claws. I once had a very good opportunity of noting the manner in which a big male lion killed a heavy ox, which would certainly have scaled more than twice its own weight. This ox was killed during the night, but as the lion was immediately driven from the carcase, it had no time Ill ox KILLED BY LION 6i to inflict any wound upon it other than those made when it first seized its victim, and the ground being soft from recent rain, every step taken by both the ox and the Hon during the brief struggle was plainly visible. The lion had evidently crept close up to where the ox was lying (within forty yards of my waggon), and had either attacked it where it lay or just as it was rising to its feet. It had not jumped upon its victim, but throughout the struggle had always kept its hind -feet on the ground. The only wounds that had been inflicted on the ox were claw-marks on the nose and on the top of the left shoulder - blade, and the lion had evidently seized it by the muzzle with its left paw and on the top of the shoulder with the right, and had simply held it, pulling its head in towards its chest. The ox had plunged forward, dragging the lion with it for a few yards, and had then fallen with its head twisted right under it and its neck dislocated. Whether the lion had broken the ox's neck by its own strength, or whether the dislocation was due to the way in which it fell with its head twisted in under it, I cannot say; but my experience is that when a single lion tries to kill an ox or a buffalo, it invariably seizes it over the muzzle with one paw, and usually succeeds in either breaking its victim's neck or causing it to break it itself by its own weight in falling. When several lions attack an ox or buffalo, they will often bite and tear it all over and take a long time to kill it. Upon several occasions I have listened to the protracted bellowing of buffaloes being thus mauled to death. Upon one occasion a party of five lions stampeded my oxen as they lay round the waggon, and very soon seized and pulled down one of them. The wretched creature bellowed most fearfully, and must have been suffering terribly. Hastily light- ing torches of long dry grass, several of my Kafirs 62 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. and I ran to help it. The blazing grass scared the lions off, and they left the ox before the light of the torches reached them. The wounded animal immediately got up and rushed off again into the darkness, but had not gone far before its loud bellowing told us the lions had got hold of it once more. They took some time to kill it, but its agonised bellowings gradually died away in low moans, until at length all was again quiet. During the approach of these five lions to my camp, and the subsequent chase and long-drawn-out killing of the ox, not one of them made the slightest sound ; and as far as my own personal experience goes, with one exception, whenever lions have reconnoitred or attacked my camp at night, and bitten or killed any of my native followers or cattle or horses, they have done all their stalking and killing without making a sound. If disturbed, however, they always growl loudly. On the occasion I have referred to as an exception to this rule, three lions — as we learnt the next morning by the spoor — came quite close up to my bivouac one night in Northern Mashunaland, and one of them gave a very loud roar which woke us all up. I was travellinof at the time with a small cart and eifjht oxen, which were tied to the yokes, and were right in the open, unprotected either by fires or any kind of kraal or fence. My two horses were tied to one of the wheels, and my few native servants and myself were lying close to them, with a small fence of soft bush behind us. The three lions that came so near us in the night could not have been very hungry, or they would assuredly have seized one of my oxen. Perhaps the one that so suddenly roared only did so with the idea of triglitcning the oxen, and if one of them had broken the raw hide thong with which it was fastened to the yoke, and run oft away from our camp, all three of them Ill HOW A LION KILLS 63 would very likely have pursued and killed it. Fortunately, neither my oxen nor my horses showed much fear on this occasion, and although the former pulled a bit, they did not break their thongs, and we soon quieted them and then built up some big fires. The lions passed on up the little river near which we were camped, and before long began to roar loudly, a pretty good sign, I think, that they had already dined and were not hunting. Why, when a family of four or five lions are hunting together, one of their number being an old male, they should kill an ox so much less artistically than the old male would have done, if he had been alone, I do no know. Possibly the eagerness of each member of the party renders a scientific attack by any one of them impossible, or perhaps the older lions allow the younger ones to do the killing for practice. There is no doubt, I think, that lions know that the head, throat, and the back of the neck are the most vital spots in all animals on which they prey. Human beings are nearly always seized by the head or neck ; horses, donkeys, and zebras are almost invariably killed by bites in the back of the neck just behind the ears, or by bites in the throat ; whilst they either dislocate the necks of heavy animals like buffaloes, or hold them in such a way that they can hardly help falling and break- inor their own necks. The lion which broke the o neck of one of my oxen, as I have described above, escaped punishment when it returned to the carcase the following evening owing to my rifle missing fire. It then visited a mining camp close at hand, and forcing its way into an enclosure in which there were fourteen sheep and goats and one calt, it killed every one of these unfortunate animals. I shot this lion early the following morning and then examined its victims. Every one of them, the calf as well as the sheep and goats, had been killed by 64 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. a single bite in the head. In each case the upper canine teeth had been driven through the top of the skull or the back of the neck just behind the ears. I once came on a young elephant only a few minutes after it had been killed by a lion. The only wounds I could find were deep tooth-marks in the throat. Lions kill and eat every kind of wild animal in Africa with the exception of the Pachydermata — though they occasionally catch and kill a young elephant or rhinoceros that has been separated from its mother — but as long as buffaloes and zebras are plentiful in the countries they inhabit, they will kill far more of these than of any other animal. Ouaggas and Burchell's zebras probably formed their chief food on the plains of the Cape Colony, the Orange River Colony, and the Transvaal before those countries were settled by Europeans ; whilst farther north, where great numbers of buffaloes frequented the neighbourhood of every river, the lions lived almost entirely on these animals, following the herds in all their wanderings, just as in North America the prairie wolves were always in attendance on the bisons. Giraffes are sometimes killed by lions, but according to my experience only very rarely ; no doubt because they must be very awkward animals to pull down, and also for the reason that, generally speaking, they inhabit dry, waterless stretches of country, throughout which game is usually only sparsely distributed and into which lions do not penetrate. Although I have excluded the Pachydermata from the list of animals on which lions prey, there nevertheless seems to be good evidence that these carnivora do sometimes attack and kill good-sized cow elephants. I well remember an old Boer hunter, Michael Engelbreght, telling me of an unsuccessful attack made by lions on a cow elephant within a short Ill ELEPHANT ATTACKED BY LIONS 65 distance of the shooting hole where he was lying one night watching for elephants coming to drink at Tamasanka vley on the old road to the Zambesi. This incident had occurred only a few nights before I met Engelbreght at the vley in question. But it happened so long ago (in 1874) that I cannot remember anything more than that the elephant was held up by the lions for some hours, and that the trumpeting of the former was accompanied by the loud growling of the latter, and that when my informant examined the ground where the combat had taken place, the next morning, he found a great deal of thorn bush trampled down by the elephant, and some blood on the ground. The former, how- ever, although probably it had been badly bitten in the trunk and legs, had kept the lions from its throat, and had finally beaten them off and made good its retreat. Michael Engelbreght was at that time a man of over sixty years of age, and as he had been a hunter from his youth upwards, in the golden days of South African hunting, he must have had a vast experience of the habits of wild animals, but I well remember that he spoke of this incident of an elephant having been attacked by lions as wonderful and almost incredible. I have, however, heard of another case of an elephant having been attacked and killed by lions. When passing through Kimberley in 1895, I met my old friend Air. F. S. Arnot, who has done such splendid work as a pioneer missionary in Central Africa, and who is an absolutely reliable man, and he then told me a story of an elephant having been killed by lions near Lake Mweru. Hearing last year that Mr. Arnot was in England, I wrote and asked him if he would kindly tell me this story again, as I wanted to put it on record. In the course of his answer to my letter Mr. Arnot wrote : " The lion story 1 told you may appear rather fall to some, F 66 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap, hi but when travelling between Lakes Tanganyika and Mweru, in November 1894, and when skirting the northern end of the great Mweru Marsh — a regular elephants' stronghold — my men suddenly left me en masse — they were a raw set of men — returning presently with elephant flesh. They then told me that our guides having informed them that they had that morning seen six hungry lions attack and pull down a full-grown cow elephant, just ahead of where we then were, they had left me so suddenly in order to drive the lions off and get some meat. Unfortunately, I did not see the lions myself, but there could be no doubt about the truth of our guides' statement, for I saw the lions' spoor and the carcase of the dead elephant. The tusks were very small, but my men brought them. They may have weighed from four to five pounds each." As the tusks were so small, this elephant could hardly have been a full-grown cow ; but it must have been a good-sized animal, probably a young cow about three-parts grown. It is a great pity that Mr. Arnot did not examine the carcase care- fully and ascertain exactly how the elephant had been killed. As the natives, however, asserted positively that they had seen six lions attack and kill it, and as Mr. Arnot is fully convinced that their story was true, I think it ought to be accepted as a fact, especially as cases of full-grown elephants having been killed by tigers in India and Burma have been put on record. CHAPTER IV NOTES ON THE LION {contimicd) Depredations of lions in Mashunaland — Sad death of Mr. Teale — Great slaughter of pigs by a lioness — Mode of entering a cattle kraal — Method of killing prey — Sharpness of lion's claws — Mode of seizing a horse in motion — Lion chasing koodoos — Lions lying in wait for oxen — How a lion charges — Black Jantje's story — Numbing effect of lion's bite — Cruelty in nature — Appearance of wild lions — Colour of eyes — Lions at bay — A crouching lion — A lucky shot — The cat a lion in miniature — A danger signal — -Social habits of lions — Troops of lions — Lions on the Mababi plain — Difference between cubs of one litter — Individual differences in lions — Great variation in the develop- ment of the mane — Lion probably first evolved in a cold climate — Still found in Europe in the time of Herodotus— Effect of cold on growth of lion's mane. When a previously uninhabited piece of country- is invaded and settled up by a tribe of natives or by Europeans, lions are always very troublesome, as they look upon all the newly introduced domestic animals as some new species of game specially brought into the country for their benefit. For the first few months after J\Ir. Rhodes's pioneers entered Mashunaland in 1890, I kept as accurate an account as I could of the number of h(jrses, donkeys, oxen, sheep, goats, and pigs that were killed by lions, and it soon amounted to more than two hundred. During the same time two white men were killed and several others severely injured by lions. The saddest case was that of a young man named Teale, who had come to Mashunaland 67 68 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. in the hope of making his fortune by market- gardening. He was outspanned one night near a native village not far from Umtali, where he had gone to buy grain. His four oxen were tied to the yokes, and he with his native driver was sleep- ing on the ground beneath his two- wheeled cart, when he was seized and carried off by a lion. What the lion did not eat of him, the hycenas probably got, as nothing was ever found but his head and one foot with the boot still on it. A rather curious incident happened the following year at a farm on the Hanyani river about forty miles from Salisbury. The owner of the farm — from whom I heard this story (which was fully corroborated by his native servants) — was breeding pigs, and had a large number of these animals in a series of pens, separated from one another by low partitions, but all under one thatched roof. One night a lioness managed to force her way into the piggery between two poles, and after having satisfied her hunger, was apparently unable to find her way out again, and either became angry or frightened, or else must have been overcome with an almost insatiable lust for killing. At any rate, she wandered backwards and forwards through the pens and killed almost all the pigs, over a hundred altogether, each one with a bite in the head or the back of the neck. She had only eaten portions of two young pigs. She managed to effect her escape before daylight, but returned the following night, and was shot by a set gun. I saw her skull, which was that of a full- grown lioness with good teeth. There appears to be a considerable difference of opinion as to the means usually adopted l)y lions to effect an entrance by night into a cattle kraal or a camp surrounded by a fence. They are often said to leap boldly over high fences and stockades. In my own experience I have not known them do this. IV SHARPNESS OF LION'S CLAWS 69 They will walk through any opening in an enclosure, but in the absence of such a means of ingress, I have always found that they got inside by creeping through the fence, even when it was low and very thick and thorny. I have known a lion to walk round and round a stockaded cattle kraal, and at last force its way in by pressing two poles apart and squeezing through the opening thus made. Should lions, however, be disturbed and suddenly fired at whilst feeding on a bullock which they have killed inside an enclosure, they will almost always jump over the fence in their hurry to escape. I have never seen any evidence of a lion's killing its prey by striking it a heavy blow with one of its paws, and I believe that it always endeavours to kill by biting, and only uses its claws for holding or pulling an animal to its mouth. I have seen both a lion and a lioness bayed by dogs repeatedly throw out their fore-paws like lightning when one of these latter came near them ; but the movement was not in the nature of a blow, but rather an attempt to hook one of the dogs in their claws and draw it to them. Lions, I think, must often lose their prey through the very sharpness of their claws, which cut like knives through the skin and flesh of a heavy animal in motion. I have known several instances of a lion overtaking a horse that had only had a short start. In such a case a lion will not land with a Hying leap rioht on to a horse's back. It gallops close along the ground until it is almost under the horse's tail, and then, rearing itself up on its hind-legs, seizes it on either Hank, endeavouring to hold it with the protruded claws of its great fore -paws. But almost invariably in such a case it fails to stop a galloping horse, its claws simply cutting great gashes through skin and flesh. I once saw a lion chasing four koodoos in broad daylight, though on a cold cloudy morning. It was galloping after 70 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. them flat along the ground as hard as it could go, and looked like an enormous mastiff, especially as, though a male, it had but little mane. On another occasion, late one ev^ening, I saw a lion and two lionesses lying in wait for some cattle of mine which were feeding towards them. Every now and then one or other of the lions would raise its head for a moment above the grass to see that the oxen were still coming on, lowering it again after one quick look. But for my intervention, these lions would probably have lain quite still until one or other of the oxen had fed close up to them, when they would have seized it by the head before it had time to turn. As lions nearly always hunt by scent and by night, they no doubt come up wind and approach as near as possible to a herd of game before making an attack, and probably often lie quite still until some animal feeds right on to them. In a country where game is plentiful, one would imagine that on a dark night lions must have but little trouble in securing food, and this is no doubt the case, as these carnivora become excessively fat wherever game is really plentiful. When a lion charges, it does not come on in great leaps, nor does it strike its adversary a crush- ing blow with its paw. It comes along close to the ground like a great dog and bites, often so low that its forefeet can hardly be off the ground. Two Boer hunters of my acquaintance were both of them first bitten in the thioh. Shortly after the opening up of Mashunaland, too, an Englishman and a Dane were both seized in the same way by charging lions when hunting near the Pungwe river, in Portuguese P2ast Africa, the latter dying from his wounds. In US77 an Englishman was charged by an unwounded lion in Mashunaland and severely bitten in the groin ; and in the follow- ing year, in the same locality, an old Hottentot IV BUSHMAN KILLED BY LION 71 servant of mine was badly bitten in the small of the back when running away from a charging lion which he had previously wounded. All these wounds were so low down that they must have been in- flicted when the lion's forefeet were on the ground. On the other hand, many cases are on record of men standing facing charging lions being seized by the left forearm and sometimes by the shoulder. I do not remember to have heard of a case of a man being bitten in the head in a frontal charge, but one of my old servants, " Black Jantje," described to me very minutely the way in which he saw from a distance of only a few yards a Bushman killed by a wounded lion. When the lion charged every one ran, and just as " Black Jantje " reached a small tree, it dashed past him and the next instant caught up to a Bushman. It appeared, Jantje told me, to rear itself up, and placing a forepaw on each shoulder, gave the unfortunate savage a bite in the head. There were no wounds on the man's shoulders, but his skull was bitten through, and he was dashed to the ground with such violence that the skin was knocked off both his knees. The wounded lion made no further attack, but walking slowly away to the foot of a neighbouring tree, lay down and presently died within a few yards of its dead enemy. Two cases have come within my experience of lions charging home, and after having thrown their adversaries to the crround with one severe bite, leaving them without further molesta- tion. I have known personally a number of men who had been mauled by lions. Everyone of them was bitten, not struck by the lion's paw. Indeed, most of them were absoultely untouched by the lion's claws. I once made the acquaintance of a fme old Boer hunter with whom I subsequently became very intimate, just after he had been very severely mauled 72 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. by a lion. On asking him if he had felt much pain when the lion was biting him — he had eleven deep tooth wounds in the one thigh, besides others in the left arm and hand, and described the lion as having "chewed" him — he answered, "Ja, ik at byung sair gekrij " (" Yes, I felt much pain ") ; and some Kafirs have also told me that they have suffered much when beinjjf bitten by lions. It is possible that old Petrus Jacobs and my Kafir informants did really feel some pain at the time when they were being bitten, but in the case of Europeans, at any rate, who probably possess very highly- strung nervous systems, all the first-hand evidence I have been able to gather goes to prove that the bite of a lion or a tiger is practically painless. I imagine that the reason of this is, that the tre- mendous energy exerted by a lion in biting is equivalent to a heavy blow, which produces such a shock to the nervous system that all sensation is for the time being deadened, as it would be by a heavy blow from a sledge-hammer. I do not think that any kind of wounds from either blows or bullets or bites are likely to give any appreciable pain if infiicted swiftly when the blood is up ; but they become painful enough very soon afterwards. When animals are killed quickly by lions, they too probably suffer very little, if at all, but no one who has listened, as I have done, to the bellowing of an ox or a buffalo being killed by inches could possibly say that such an animal's sufferings were not very great. I once had a fine stallion donkey killed by a hyaena within a short distance of my bivouac. It had first been seized between the hind-legs by its foul assailant, and its screams were perfectly heart- rendin£r, and haunted me for a lono; time afterwards. My Kafirs and I ran to the poor brute's assistance at once, but were too late to save it, as a great hole had been torn in its belly, out of which half its IV THE EYES OF LIONS 73 entrails were hanq^ing. No ; it is useless for the scientist or the divine to tell an old hunter that there is no cruelty in nature, because the man who has spent many years of his life in a wild country knows by actual experience that such an assertion is not true. But let me return to my lions. In appearance a full-maned, well-proportioned lion lying in peaceful repose in a European menagerie, gazing placidly and thoughtfully out of sleepy, brownish yellow eyes at the human crowd beyond the bars of its cage, is a truly dignified and majestic-looking animal ; and if a fine specimen of a wild lion could be viewed at close quarters and at a moment when it was lying or standing with its massive mane-encircled head well raised, content with itself and all the world, after a good meal, and entirely unconscious of danger, it also would doubt- less look both dignified and majestic, though I doubt if it could ever look quite so reposeful as the typical lion of the picture-books ; for although wild lions are sometimes caught fast asleep, they are usually alert and watchful. I have spoken of the eyes of lions that have grown up in captivity as being brownish in colour and somewhat sleepy in expression, and that is the impression I have received from looking at the lions in the Zoological Gardens in Resfent's Park. On the other hand, I remember the colour of the eyes of wild lions as being of a flaming yellow, which retains its fierce brilliancy for many hours after death. Should a lion be shot through the loins and injured in such a way that, its hind- quarters being paralysed, it can be closely approached without danger, its fierce eyes seem ablaze with bright yellow flame, and give complete expression to the awful fury by which it is possessed. It is worth mentionino: I think, that when visitino- the Zooloi^ncal Gardens at Clifton, a couple of years ago, I noticed that the eves of the lions and timers there 74 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. were in most cases of a flaming yellow, as they are, according to my experience, in wild lions. In some of them, however, the eyes were brownish and sleepy-looking. When walking, wild lions hold the head rather low, lower than the line of the back, and although, when suddenly encountered, they will raise it for a moment to take a look at the intruder, they will soon lower it again and either trot away with a low growl or else stand watching. A wild lion looks his best and his worst, intensely savage but not at all majestic, when standing at bay. I have the pictures of four male lions, that I had chased on horseback and brought to bay, very vividly im- pressed on my memory. One was wounded, though only slightly, the other three as yet untouched. They all stood fairly facing me, their heads held well down below their mane- crowned shoulders, their fierce yellow eyes gleaming, and their ears laid flat, like the ears of an angry cat or leopard. All the time they stood at bay they kept up a constant succession of loud rumbling growls and flicked their tails continually from side to side, throwing them suddenly into the air before charg- ing with louder, hoarser growls. In one respect the behaviour of these four angry lions was quite different from that of an angry cat or leopard, or even tiger. There was no suspicion of snarling about them. Their mouths were held slightly open, but instead of the upper lip being drawn up so as to expose the upper canine teeth, it was drawn down so as to completely cover them. They stood thus with their mouths held slightly open, growling savagely and twitching their tails from side to side, until two of them charged before I fired at theni, and the other two I fired at and killed before they could make up their minds to charge. Now this abstention from all suspicion of IV A LUCKY SHOT 75 snarling which I remember so well in the case of four different lions when driven to bay, and the fact that I do not carry in my mind the picture of any lion snarling that I have ever shot, makes me wonder whether it is correct to depict an angry lion as snarling like an angry cat or leopard. This is a small matter, no doubt, but one which I think it is worth while inquiring into, as if an angry lion really does not snarl, it differs in this respect from all other members of the cat tribe. 1 once galloped almost on to a lion lying flat on the ground in grass only about a foot in height before I saw it. When I at last made it out, I was directly in front of, and probably less than twenty yards away from it. As I pulled my horse in, this lion had its head pressed down on its outstretched paws and its eyes were fixed upon me. Had I ridden by, it would certainly never have moved until I had got out of sight. As I raised my ritie and looked down the barrel to align the sights upon its head, I saw the black tuft of hair at the end of its tail flicked lightly from side to side, and the fore- paws, that had been stretched out straight beyond its nose, drawn slowly under its breast, without its head or body being perceptibly raised. I knew the lion was on the very point of charging, but my horse kept breathing hard and I could not get my sight steadily fixed below its eyes. Then, just as I saw the crouching beast's hind-quarters quivering, or rather moving gently from side to side, I fired, and luckily my bullet struck it just between the eyes, and crashing into its brain, killed it instantly, so that it never moved, but still lay crouching on the ground, struck dead at the very last moment before starting on its charge. Since that time I have on several occasions watched a cat when stalking a bird go through every movement made by that h'on — the same apparently involuntary twitching of just 76 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. the end of the tail, the same drawing-in of the fore- paws beneath the chest, and then the wavy move- ment of the loins just before the final rush. As lions are very nocturnal in their habits and usually hunt by night, it is, of course, very unusual to see them approach and kill their prey, but from the above related experience I imagine that every movement made by a lion in approaching and finally making a rush upon an antelope or zebra is exactly represented in miniature by a cat stalking a bird or rabbit. It is as well to remember that if a lion, after standing for a short time growling at you and whisking its tail backwards and forwards round its hind-legs, suddenly stiffens it and throws it straight into the air at ricrht anofles to the line of its back two or three times, it is a danger-signal and means charging. A lion may often charge without throwing its tail straight up, but I believe that it will never throw its tail up without charging. The African lion appears to be more gregarious than any other of the Felidae, and the male is certainly addicted to polygamy. Often a lion or a lioness may live and hunt for a time by itself, and very old animals are probably always solitary, as an old lion would be driven away from the females by younger males, and an old female would probably be badly treated by younger animals of both sexes. Sometimes two or even three males will hunt together for a time. More often a male lion may be met with accompanied by froni one to four females, some of which latter may be followed by cubs of different ages and sizes. A family party consisting of one old male lion, three or four adult females, and several cubs, some of which may stand almost as high at the shoulder as their mothers, would constitute what the old Boer hunters would have called "en trop leeuws " (a trooj) of lions). In parts of Africa where game is, or was, very I'LAIE SHOWING DIFFERENCES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MANE IN LIONS INHABIIINC; A COMrAKATIVELY SMALL AREA OF COUNTRY IN SOU I H AFRICA. The skins from which ihese tiguies have Ik-cii drawn are all in the |X)Ssession of the Author, and are all three those of fully adult aninuils. Xo. I. — Lion killed on the up[x_T Hanyaiii river in Mashuiiaiand in June 1880. •OSi N'o. 2. — Lion killed on the L'in/.int?\\ani Ri\er near Bulawavo. N". .5. — Linn kill.Ml on ill.- Untlrtlj.- ii\ci-, near tin- M.ikii i-k n 1 S.ilt [mm. in M.iv 1S79. IV LOVE AND JEALOUSY 77 abundant, there are many authentic records of over twenty Hons having been seen together. In his article on "The Lion," pubhshed in the Badminton Library Series, Mr. F. J. Jackson, C.B., has noted the fact that on August 7, 1890, he and Dr. Mackinnon came across a troop of twenty -three lions near Machakos in East Africa. This troop consisted of three male lions with splendid dark manes, five or six lionesses, and the rest cubs. I have come to the conclusion that such large assemblages of lions as this, in which there are several full-grown males, are, in all probability, only of a very temporary nature, the chance meeting and fraternisation of several families which, as a rule, live and hunt apart ; since I believe that the passions of love and jealousy would not allow two or more males to live permanently in the company of lionesses without fighting. When a troop of lions is met with, in which, besides a full-grown male and some females and small cubs, there are also one or two good-sized young males with small manes, I believe that they are the offspring of the old male and one or other of the adult females, and that they have lived and hunted with the troop since cubhood. Such young males are probably not driven away to hunt by themselves until they commence to aspire to the affections of one of the females of the party. In 1879 I encountered two pairs of male lions hunting in company in the Mababi country to the north of Lake N'gami. I shot the first pair, and should certainly have killed both the others had I only had a ritle and a few cartridges with me when I first saw them, as they were right out on an open i)lain from which the grass had been burnt, far away from the nearest bush, and I was riding the best hunting horse I ever possessed. The two lions w^hich I shot were large and heavy, apparently just in their prime, and the other pair also appeared 78 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. to be full-grown animals. Now the Masarwa Bushmen living near the Mababi plain — and these wild people are extraordinarily acute observers — declared that they knew both these pairs of lions well, and said that each pair were the cubs of one mother, and had been hunting together since cub- hood. Curiously enough, in the case of both these pairs of lions the two animals living and hunting together differed from one another very much. In each case one was of a very dark colour all over, with a dark mane, whilst the body of the other was of a pale yellow, and it had scarcely any mane at all. A few days after encountering the second pair of lions, a friend and myself came upon two lionesses on the same open plain, both of which we shot. One of these lionesses was on the point of ofivinof birth to three cubs, which we cut out of her womb. Two of these cubs were males, and they differed very much one from another in colour even before birth. One was very dark indeed, owing to the blackish tint of the tips of the hairs of its little fluffy coat. The other was of a reddish yellow. The fur of the female cub was also of a much lighter colour than in the dark male. Now I cannot but adhere to the opinion which I wrote down in my diary at the time, that these two male lion cubs would, had they lived, have grown up into animals differing very much in appearance one from the other. The dark cub would have become a dark-skinned, dark-maned lion, the lighter coloured one a yellow lion with. probably very little mane. Commenting upon such a case as the above, Mr. R. Lydekker, in one of his recently published zoological essays, says that when light- and dark- maned cubs are met with in the same litter it is due to crossing between lions of different races. Mr. Lydekker has also stated that " with regard to the lion, it has now been ascertained that the black- IV VARIATION IN LIONS 79 maned and tawny-maned specimens belong, in most cases at any rate, to distinct local races." The objection to this theory is that you cannot classify all African lions under two heads, the black- maned and the tawny-maned. Dealing with this subject in 1881, and referring only to the skins of lions I had seen which had been killed in the country between the Limpopo and the Zambesi, I wrote as follows : " I cannot see that there is any reason for supposing that more than one species (of lion) exists, and as out of fifty lion skins scarcely two will be found exactly alike in the colour and length of the mane, I think it would be as reason- able to suppose that there are twenty species as two. The fact is, that between the animal with hardly a vestige of mane and the far handsomer but much less common beast with a long flowing black mane ev^ery possible intermediate variety may be found." Since that time I have seen a great many more skins of lions shot in the country to the south of the Zambesi, as well as a number from limited areas of country in East Africa and in Somaliland, and it appears to me that the lions of these two latter very limited areas show exactly the same variations as regards colour and profuseness of mane as their congeners in the more southerly parts of the continent. I have seen the skins of many lions and lionesses in South Africa, which seemed to be those of full- sized animals though they may have been young in years, showing very well-defined red-brown spots on the legs, Hanks, and belly. The old Boer hunters, indeed, had a name for such lions, " bont pod leeuws " (spotted-footed lions), wliich some of them maintained belonged to a distinct species. I once, however, showed the skins of five lions, which I had recently shot in Mashunahmd, to a well-known Boer hunter. One was that of a large male with a 8o AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. fine dark mane. This he declared to be the skin of a "swart voer-leif leeuw " (lion with the front part of the body black) ; whilst the skin of a lioness which showed a good many spots on the legs and belly, he declared to be that of a " bont pod leeuw, de kwai sort " (spotted - footed lion, the vicious kind). As, however, these two animals were con- sorting together when I shot them, I do not believe that they belonged to different species or even races. I am inclined to think that lions showing spots on the legs and belly, when adult but still not old, might very likely lose them in later life. In regard to wild lions, it may be said, as a general proposition, that the mane usually grows round the neck and on the chest only, with a prolongation from the back of the neck to behind the shoulder-blades. Sometimes large full-grown male lions will be practically maneless. Occasionally specimens will be met with in which the entire shoulders as well as the neck will be covered with mane. When writing of lions in 1881, I stated that I had never seen the skin of a wild lion in which the whole belly was covered with long hair, as is so often the case with lions in captivity in this country, though I had seen full-maned wild lions with large tufts of long dark hair on the elbows and in the flanks. A few years later, however, Lo Bengula, the last chief of the Matabele, gave me the skin of a lion which had been killed near the upper course of the Umzingwani river, not far from Bulawayo, with a very fine mane. In this specimen the tufts of hair in the flanks were very profuse, almost meeting across the belly, and there were a few long hairs all over the under parts of the skin. There is also, I think, good evidence to show that in the more southerly portions of South Africa lions not infrequently developed a growth of long hair all over their bellies ; for not only are all the lions IV EFFECT OF COLD ON LION'S MANE 8i figured by Captain (afterwards Sir Cornwallis) Harris so adorned, but there is now in the Junior United Service Club in London a mounted speci- men of a South African Hon with not only an extraordinary wealth of mane covering the whole of the fore-part of the body, but also with a thick growth of long hair all over its belly. This lion is said to have been killed near the Orange river about 1830, probably, I should think, on the bontebok Hats, near Colesberg, in the Cape Colony, though possibly on the plains to the north of the river. Now, personally I believe that cold has more to do with the development of a lion's mane than anything else. The winter cold of the high plateaus of the Cape Colony, the Orange- Colony, and the Southern Transvaal is much more severe than in any part of Africa where lions exist to-day, and Harris's drawings and the mounted specimen of the lion I have above referred to, which was killed near the Orange river long ago, show that wild lions sometimes attained very profuse manes and had their bellies covered with long hair in that part of Africa. To-day, lions with really fine manes are never found except in countries where the nights are cold during the winter months, such as the Athi plains, the Uas N'gishu plateau, the high downs of Matabeleland and Mashunaland, and the Haud of Somaliland, as well as other elevated regions. In the Pungwe river district some few lions attain fairly good, but never, I believe, extraordinarily profuse manes. Only a certain proportion of the lions found on high and cold plateaus have, however, fine long dark manes. Many have very poor manes, but it seems to me impossible that there can be more than one species of lion in so confmed an area. In the hotter parts of Africa, lying below the level of the more elevated plateaus, I think I am correct in saying that lions G 82 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. never get fine manes, and the hotter the climate, the poorer on the average the manes will be. The fact that the high, cold plateaus are always open grasslands free from thorn-bush, whilst the lower parts of the country are usually covered with scrubby bush and thorny thickets, has led many people to think that lions have poor manes in bush- covered countries because the thorns tear out the hair ; but I think that this is quite a mistaken idea, for in the western part of Matabeleland, in the neighbourhood of the Ramokwebani and Tati rivers, where the winter nights are very cold, although the whole country is covered with forest, much of it dense thorn-bush, the lions used some- times to grow very fine long manes. Personally, therefore, I am convinced that climate is the main factor in the production of a lion's mane, and possibly very high feeding may help to produce certain exceptionally fine animals. As the high plateaus of Southern and Eastern Africa have, before the advent of Europeans, always teemed with great multitudes of zebras and antelopes, and in some cases buffaloes as well, the lions of the high and cold plateaus have most certainly always been well fed. The lions living in the Pungwe river district too must, before the advent of liuropeans, have been exceptionally well fed. It has always seemed to me that in Africa and India, where, although the nights may be cold, the sun is always hot, a heavy mane must be more or less of a nuisance and encumbrance to a lion ; and I believe that such a wonderful fjrowth of hair must be a reversion to an ancestral adornment first evolved in a cold climate. The fossil remains of the so-called cave lion [Fe/is spelaea), which have been discovered in great abundance in the cave deposits of Pleistocene times in Western Europe, are said by Professor Boyd IV ANCIENT CAVE LIONS 83 Dawkins to present absolutely no osteological or dental character by which they can be distinguished from those of existing lions, and I think that we are therefore justified in believing that the lion was first evolved in a cold climate, and that in the course of ages it gradually spread south and east, following the migrations of the game on which it preyed. It probably entered Africa before that continent was separated from Europe by the Mediterranean Sea, at the same time as the ancestors of the giraffes, antelopes, buffaloes, elephants, and rhinoceroses of to-day, and accom- panied them through Eastern Africa right down to Cape Agulhas. Some lions remained in Europe long after the separation of Africa from that continent, and even in the time of Herodotus these animals appear to have been still common through- out South-Eastern Europe. As the ancient cave lions which roamed the woods and plains of Western Europe co-existed with bears, mammoths, reindeer, elk, wild cattle, and other denizens of a cold country, there can be little doubt that their coats were thick and furry in both sexes, whilst a heavy mane would have been an adornment to the males without being an en- cumbrance. That the flowing mane and shaggy hair on the belly of the male lion were first evolved in a cold climate is, I think, proved by the undoubted fact that there is an inherited tendency in all lions to grow a mane, which is crippled and dwarfed by a hot climate but encouraged by exposure to cold. Quite recently there was a fine lion in the Zoological Society's Gardens at Regent's Park which was presented by Messrs. Grogan and Sharpe. This animal was caught near the Pungwe river, in South- East Africa, and brought to England by these gentlemen when quite a small cub. When full- 84 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap, iv grown it developed a very much finer mane than I believe has ever been seen in a wild lion that has come to maturity in the part of Africa from which it was brought. Similarly, some thirty years ago there was a very fine lion in the Society's Gardens which was brought by Colonel Knox from the Soudan. Colonel Knox took me to the Gardens to see this animal, and pointed out to me the fact that it had developed a far finer mane (extending much farther back over the shoulders and under the belly) than any man had ever seen in a wild lion in the country from which it came. Lion cubs brought to this country from India also grow fine manes, though I do not think that there is any record of a lion ever having been shot in India with anything more than a fairly good mane. The fact that lion cubs captured in any part of Africa or Asia, and brought up in the comparatively cool and damp climate of Western Europe, always- — or nearly always — grow fine manes, which usually cover the whole shoulders and often extend all over the under-surface of the body, and the further fact that in the hotter parts of Africa lions always have very scanty manes, but on the high, cold plateaus often develop good, and occasionally very luxuriant manes, appears to me to show that a heavily maned lion is a reversion to an ancient ancestral type, first evolved in Pleistocene times in a cold and inclement climate. CHAPTER V NOTES ON THE LION (concludcci) Method of opening a carcase — Removal of paunch and entrails — Lions skilful butchers — Paunch and entrails not usually eaten — Lions not bone-eaters — Will eat putrid meat — Will sometimes devour their own kind — Number of cubs at birth — Check on inordinate increase of carnivorous animals — The lion's roar — Diversity of opinion concerning its power — Probable explana- tion— Volume of sound when several lions roar in unison — A nerve-shaking experience — Lions silent when approaching their prey — Roar after killing — And in answer to one another — Lions only roar freely in undisturbed districts— Lions essentially game-killers — Hut change their habits with circumstances — Killing lions with spear and shield — Bambaleli's splendid courage— Lions killed by Bushmen with poisoned arrows — Behaviour of domestic animals in the presence of lions — Cattle sometimes terrified, at other times show no fear. WiiKN once a lion or lions have killed an animal they almost always open the carcase at the point where the skin is thinnest, that is, in the flank just in front of where the thigh joins the belly. They then at once tear off and eat this thin skin and the flesh attached to it, and all the skin and flesh covering the paunch and entrails, which latter they then proceed to remove from the carcase. The neatness and cleanliness with which lions can take the inside out of an animal they have just killed has always struck me as little short of marvellous. Every one who has had to do much cutting up of large animals knows how easy it is to tear the skin of the paunch and get some of its contents on the ii5 86 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. meat, and African natives are nearly always very clumsy and dirty in this respect. Lions, however, are able to remove the paunch and entrails from the carcase of a large animal as skilfully as a trained butcher. The offal itself is dragged away to a distance of ten yards or so, and then covered with earth or grass, which is scratched up and thrown over it. As a rule, lions certainly do not eat the paunch and entrails of any animals which they may kill, but I once had occasion to search through a refuse-heap left by a party of lions near the carcase of a buffalo they had killed, in the hope of finding some scavenger beetles of a rare species, and I found that it contained nothing but vegetable matter — the contents of the buffalo's stomach. If the lions had not eaten the entrails and the covering of the paunch, I do not know what had become of them. This refuse-heap as usual had been thickly covered with earth and grass, which had been scratched up from all around it. Once the inside of a carcase has been removed, the liver, kidneys, heart, and lungs are eaten, with all the fat adhering to them. Then the carcase is again torn open at the anus, and the soft meat of the buttocks is devoured in great lumps, which are swallowed whole with the skin attached. No lion will ever scrunch up heavy bones like a hycena, but should he kill an animal in good condition, he will swallow all the com- paratively soft bones of the brisket, and also gnaw off the ends of all the rib-bones. The idea that lions will not eat the flesh of any animal which they have not killed themselves is quite erroneous. It would, indeed, be more correct to say that as long as lions can find dead animals to eat, they will not take the trouble to hunt. Nor are they at all particular as to the condition of any carcase they may chance to come across. As long as there is any meat left on it. they will eat it, and I have NUMBER OF CUBS AT BIRTH 87 known lions to remain for days in the neighbour- hood of the putrid carcases of elephants, on which they fed nightly, in preference to hunting for fresh meat, although game of all kinds was plentiful in the neighbourhood. Two instances of lions eating the flesh of one of their own kind have come under my personal observation, and although such a practice is undoubtedly of unusual occurrence, yet I should imagine that, provided hunger and opportunity were both present, there are few lions that would disdain a meal off the carcase of an individual of their own species. Although I am informed that lionesses in captivity often give birth to four, and sometimes to as many as five or six cubs, in the wild state the usual number is certainly three, and of these a large number, for some reason which has never been ascertained, never reach maturity, for it is seldom that lionesses are met with accompanied by more than two large cubs, and they often only rear one. It is an axiom that all birds and mammals living in countries where the climatic conditions are favour- able, and where they have no enemies, will increase in numbers up to the limit of the food-supply avail- able for them. When the c^round becomes over- stocked, diseases break out, which only the strongest and healthiest animals are able to resist, and these survivors perpetuate the race, which will once more increase and multiply up to a certain point. But what is it that checks the inordinate increase of carnivorous animals ? They certainly do not go on increasing in numbers up to the limit of their food - supply, otherwise there are many parts of Africa in which, before the advent of the white man, lions, leopards, cheetahs, hyaenas, and wild dogs, not to mention all the smaller carnivora, would have increased to such an extent that they would gradualK- have denuded th(t country of all 88 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. herbivorous animals, and would then have died in large numbers themselves, till in the end there would have been few animals of any kind left. But such catastrophes never occur. Wherever, before the advent of the white man, game was very plentiful in Africa, lions and all other carnivorous animals were also numerous, but the meat - eaters never increased to such an extent as to reduce the numbers of the grass-eaters on which they preyed. Let us take the Pungwe district in South - East Africa for example. In 1891 I found the country both east and west of the Pungwe river teeming with game, particularly buffaloes and zebras, the favourite food of the lion. Up to that time no Europeans had ever hunted or in any way disturbed the wild beasts in that country, and the few scattered natives living there were timid and ill armed, and certainly never killed or interfered with lions, which animals therefore were absolutely without enemies. As this state of things must have endured for cen- turies, or more probably for untold thousands, of years, why had not the lions and other carnivorous animals, living as they had been doing in such a well -stocked preserve, increased up to the limit of their food -supply ? They certainly had not done so up to 1891, the year the white man first entered the country, and at once of course changed all the natural conditions. Many lions certainly seem to die in early cubhood, and this may be a provision of nature to check their inordinate in- crease ; but that neither they nor any other species of carnivorous animal in Africa ever become so numerous, under the most favourable conditions, as to seriously diminish the numbers of the animals on which they prey is a well-ascertained fact. Lionesses, I believe, only give birth to cubs at long intervals, for although I have often seen young lions and lionesses with their mothers which must V THE LION'S ROAR 89 have been at least two years old, I have never seen a lioness accompanied by cubs of different ages. One of the most distinguishing characteristics of the lion, and the one which perhaps differentiates it more than anything else from all other members of the cat tribe, is its roar. During more than twenty years spent in hunting and pioneering in the African wilderness, I have heard lions roaring under all sorts of conditions : in the stillness of frosty winter nights, when the camp fire blazed merrily, and as each fresh log was thrown upon it sent up showers of sparks towards the cloudless, star -decked sky ; or amidst the crashing thunder-peals and blinding flashes of lightning of a stormy night during the rainy season, when it was sometimes quite impos- sible to keep a fire alight at all. On such a night, when sitting wet and cold amongst one's Kafir boys, huddled up beneath the scanty shelter of a few boughs (for I never carried a tent with me in South Africa), the roaring of lions is not altogether a reassuring sound. On a still night the roaring of lions can be heard at a very great distance, and should a party of these animals roar loudly quite a mile away, I think most people would imagine that they were within one hundred yards. One reason, I think, for the diver- sity of opinion as to the power and volume of the lion's roar is, that very few people have ever really heard several lions roaring together quite close to them, although they may believe they have done so. In 1 89 1, and again in 1892, I spent some weeks travelling and hunting in the country between Lake Sungwe and the Pungwe river, in South-East Africa, and there was scarcely a night on both those trips when lions were not heard roaring, often as many as three, and once four, different troops of these animals appearing to be answering one another from different points of the compass ; but although 90 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. on the second trip — I was alone in 1891 — my com- panions, who had not had much experience in the veld, often thought the Hons were very near us, I am sure they were never within a mile of our camp. When a party of lions are together, perhaps on their way to drink after a meal, one of them will halt and breathe out from its expanded lungs a full- toned note, which rolls afar across the silent wilder- ness. As it draws in its breath for another effort, a second member of the party emulates the leader, and then a third, a fourth, and a fifth perhaps will join in, and all of them then seem to vie with one another as to which can produce the greatest volume of sound, and it is a fact that at the climax of the roaring of a troop of lions the whole air seems to vibrate and tremble. Of a sudden the fjrand booming^, vibratins: notes cease, and are im- mediately succeeded by a series of short, deep- toned, coughing grunts, which gradually die away to a mere hissing expulsion of the breath. Then not a sound is heard until, after an interval of a few minutes, the grand competitive roaring peals across the lonely veld once more. During some few out of the thousands of nights I have lain on the ground, beneath the stars, in the interior of South Africa, I have heard lions roaring pretty near my camp ; but never quite so near as one dark night in 1879. I was returning from the Chobi river to where I had left my waggons in the Mababi country, and was alone with five Kafirs. One evening just at dusk we reached the last water- hole in the Sunta river. We had made a lonof march in intense heat, as it was the month of November, and were all so tired that we made no camp nor collected much firewood, but just lay down on the sandy ground round a very small fire. Not long after dark we heard a troop of lions roar- ing in the distance ; presently they roared again V A NERVE-SHAKING EXPERIENCE 91 evidently nearer, and roaring magnificently at inter- vals, they continued to approach until there could be no doubt that they were coming down to drink at the water-hole close to our bivouac. This water- hole was situated in the bed of the river at the foot of a steep high bank on the top of which we were lying. A game- path led down into the river-bed some fifteen yards away, and the lions were coming down this path. The night was inky black, as the sky was overcast with heavy clouds, for the rainy season was close at hand. Our fire had died down to a few embers, and it was useless looking for wood in such darkness. I don't think the lions ever noticed our dying fire, or ever had any idea of our close proximity to the water-hole, as, after having roared about a quarter of a mile away, they walked noiselessly past us along the game-path, and descend- ing to the river-bed, commenced to slake their thirst. We could hear them lapping the water when they were drinking. They roared three times in the river-bed just below us, and the volume of sound they emitted when all roaring in unison was nerve- shaking. My Kafirs sat motionless and silent, hold- ing their hands over their mouths. There were no trees of any size near us, only small bushes, so they could not make a run for it to any place of safety. They confessed to me the next morning that when they heard the lions roaring so near them "their hearts died," meaning that they were terrified ; and although I myself was not then of a very nervous disposition, and moreover believed that when lions roared loudly they were not hungry, and would therefore be unlikely to attack a human being, I was very glad when they at last left the water and we heard them go roaring back to where they had probably been feeding on the carcase of a buffalo or some other animal before they came to drink. I certainly do not believe that lions roar when 92 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. approaching their prey, for surely such a proceeding would be as foolish as it would be for a burglar to whistle and sing whilst committing a robbery, but they will sometimes roar loudly in the late evening or early night, just as they leave their lairs and set out to look for prey. When moving about at night, lions sometimes give vent to a low purring growl — very different in sound to a roar — which may be a call- note to others of their party, and if driven off by shots from a horse or an ox they have killed in the night, they will growl loudly. In approaching a camp with the intention of killino^ oxen, horses, donkeys, or human beings, lions are absolutely silent, as I believe they always are when approach- ing any kind of wild game. I believe that lions often roar after they have killed an animal and before commencing to feed, and at intervals during the night, as they lie round the carcase, and they certainly often roar when on their way to drink in the early hours of the night, but probably after they have killed some large animal and made a meal. The roaring of one lion or party of lions undoubtedly excites other lions within hearing to roar in answer. I once heard several lions roaring loudly throughout the night, and even after the sun had risen the next morning, and I found that a solitary male lion had approached a party consisting of another male, two females, and two large cubs, standing as high at the shoulder as the full-grown females. The single male was, I imagine, jealous of his married kinsman, but feared to engage in deadly combat with him, and so contented himself by roaring defiance at his rival, who answered with counter roars, in which his whole family joined. The next morning I just missed ofettinof a shot at the unattached lion, but killed the other, a very fine but hasty tempered animal, as he charged me at sight without any provocation. V COURAGEOUS SAVAGES 93 In countries where lions have long lived un- disturbed by human beings, and where they have really been the undisputed lords of the wilderness, they roar very freely, and may often be heard even after the sun has risen. But when white men suddenly invade a well -stocked game -country and disturb its peace by continual shooting, lions gradually grow more and more silent, till it becomes rare to hear one roar at all, though there may still be a good many of them about. The African lion is essentially a wilderness hunter and a game-killer, but when man, whether savage or civilised, en- croaches upon his preserves, killing or driving off the game, and bringing in cattle, sheep, and goats in their place, then he preys upon these newly introduced animals and wars with their guardians to the death. Before the introduction of firearms amonqst the Matabele. these courageous savages, though only armed with shield and spear, were accustomed to join battle without a moment's hesitation with any lion or lions that interfered with the cattle given over to their charge by their king. Full and drowsy after his feed of beef, the marauding lion would not usually go far from the carcase of the ox or cow he had killed before lying down to sleep. Soon after break of day the swarthy cattle guards would track him to his lair and silently surround and then close in on him, heaping every term of abuse upon his head as they did so. The lion thus roused, and seeing all retreat cut off, would stand at bay, and growling savagely, with head held low, ears laid Hat, lashing tail, and mouth held slightly open, would glance from side to side with blazing eyes upon its foes. Then a picked man of dauntless heart, armed with a single stabbing spear and a very large ox-hide shield, would rush forward alone towards the lion, cursing and abusing it in true 94 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. Homeric fashion. The lion, seeing its retreat cut off, almost invariably accepted the challenge and rushed upon the advancing savage, whose endeavour it was to strike one blow at his assailant and then fall to the ground beneath his broad shield. At the same time, his friends would rush in from both sides and quickly spear the lion to death, but often not before one or two of them had paid the penalty for their darings with their lives. Many lions used to be killed annually in the olden time round the outlying cattle posts in Matabeleland, and many of Umziligazi's ^ bravest warriors died of wounds received in these gladiatorial games. Many years ago I used to be very friendly with the second Enduna of Bulawayo, one Bambaleli, a splendid specimen of a good, brave, honest, heathen gentle- man. He told me that on five occasions he had been chosen to rush in on a lion that had been surrounded and brought to bay. Twice he escaped without a wound, thanks to the protection afforded by his great shield and the quickness with which his comrades had rushed in to his assistance ; but in the other three encounters he had been severely bitten, once in the right shoulder and twice through the muscles of his thigh, and he bore the scars of all these honourable wounds to his grave. The fact that, on each of the occasions when he was hurt, his formidable assailant had only been able to get in one savage bite, shows, I think, the quickness with which his friends had come to his rescue. Before they were supplied with firearms by their Bechwana masters, the Bushmen of the Kalahari sometimes killed lions with poisoned arrows. Old Bushmen have assured me that they had themselves killed lions by this means. Their plan, they said, was to creep close up to a lion lying asleep after ^ The father of Lo licntjula. V LIONS KILLED BY POISONED ARROWS 95 a heavy meal, and then to shoot one of their Httle reed arrows into some part of its body from behind the shelter of a bush or tree. The sharp prick would awake the lion but not greatly alarm it, and as it would see nothing to account for the disturb- ance of its slumbers, it would probably think it had been stung by some fly. 1 1 would probably, however, get up and walk away. The shaft of the arrow would soon fall to the ground, but the bone head, barbed and thickly smeared with poison, would remain fixed in its victim's hide, and the deadly compound would gradually permeate its blood and sap its strength. The Bushmen averred that a lion once struck by a poisoned arrow never re- covered, though it would not die till the third day. Domestic animals such as horses and oxen some- times show great alarm at the near proximity of lions, at others they only seem slightly scared, and some- times they do not seem to be frightened at all. If a horse has once been bitten by a lion, or if another horse tied up close to it has been attacked, it will probably ever afterwards evince i^reat fear at the smell of a lion. But, on the other hand, I have had several horses in my possession, which I bought in the Cape Colony or the Orange Free State, which, when I had trained them to carry the meat of antelopes, never showed the slightest sign of fear when a reeking lion skin was put on their backs, although they could never possibly have seen or smelt a lion before I took them up country. I had some trouble at first to train some of these horses to carry the meat of any kind of fresh-killed game, and they always began by smelling it and then snorting ; but once they became accustomed to the smell ot antelope meat, they showed no further alarm when the skin of a freshly killed lion was thrown over the saddle. I have known a herd of cattle, after one of their 96 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. number had been killed by a lion, travel more than twenty miles without feeding, evidently in a state of terror all the time. On the other hand, I was lying in my blankets at my camp on the Hanyani river, in Mashunaland, one day early in 1885, just in the throes of a sharp attack of fever and ague, when my cattle-herd came rushing in, saying that there was a lion amongst my cattle, and that it was killing a heifer. This was about two o'clock in the afternoon. Pulling myself together, I had one of my horses saddled up, and calling my dogs, rode out to see what had happened. I found my cattle, over fifty altogether in number, all feeding quietly not 400 yards away from my camp, just where they were, my herd-boy said, when the lion came amongst them. As it turned out, it was a lioness. She had clawed a three-year-old heifer in the flanks and on the hind-quarters, but had either been kicked off by the heifer itself or driven off by the rest of the herd. At any rate, the sudden appearance of this lioness in their midst had created no panic amongst the cattle. I had a chase after this lioness with my dogs, but she crossed the river and got into some very thick bush, and as I could not get a sight of her and was feeling very unwell, I returned to camp. In 1887, one day about noon, four lions — two males and two females — attacked my oxen and killed two of them, but without apparently alarming the others in the slightest degree, as they never ran away nor showed any sign of having been frightened. One dark night early in 1892, I was camped near the Revue river, in South- East Africa, and my oxen were lying loose round the waggon, as I thought there were no lions in the neighbour- hood. About midnight five lions came up to reconnoitre, and my oxen no doubt smelt them, for they jumped up and stampeded in a body. As V CATTLE FOUND FEEDING QUIETLY 97 they ran, the lions caught and pulled down one of them. The next morning I thought I might possibly have to follow my frightened oxen a long way before overtaking them, but I found them feeding quietly, and showing no signs of having been terrified, only a few hundred yards away. On the whole, I do not think that domestic animals have that ingrained and instinctive fear of lions with which they are usually credited, though the smell of these animals is doubtless disagreeable to them. CHAPTER VI NOTES ON THE STOTTED IIY.KNA Character of hyirnas — Contrasted with that of wolves — Story illustrating the strength and audacity of a spotted hyrcna — How a goat was seized and carried off — A mean trick — Boldness of hyicnas near native villages — More suspicious in the wilderness — Very destructive to native live stock — Will some- times enter native huts — (living an old woman to the hy;i?nas — How the smelling out of witches benefited the hyaenas — " Come out, missionary, and give us the witch "—-Number of hyicnas infesting Matabeleland in olden times — Trials for witchcraft in Matabeleland - — Food of hy;cnas ■ — Strength of jaws — Charged by a wounded hyajna — Heavy trap broken up — Killing hya:nas with set guns — Hyiena held by dogs — Hyiena attacked by wild dogs— Pace of hya'nas — -Curious experience on the Mababi plain — The hyasna's howl — Rhinoceros calf killed by hyajnas — Smell of hyicnas-- Hya'na meat a delicacy — Small cows and donkeys easily killed by hyaenas — Size and weight of the spotted hya?na — Number of whelps. It has always appeared to me that the quaUties and characteristics of the African spotted hyccna have met with somewhat scant recognition at the hands of writers on sport, travel, and natural history, for this animal is usually tersely described as a cowardly, skulking brute, and then dismissed with a few contemptuous words. Yet I think that the spotted hyrena of Africa is quite as dangerous and destructive an animal as the wolf of North America, which is usually treated with respect, sometimes with sympathy, by its biographers, though I cannot see that 98 CH. VI AUDACITY OF A SPOTTED HYitNA 99 wolves are in any way nobler in character than hyaenas. Both breeds roam abroad by night, ever crafty, fierce, and hungry, and both will be equally ready to tear open the graves and devour the flesh of human beings, should the opportunity present itself, whether on the shores of the Arctic Sea, where men's skins are yellowy brown, or beneath the shadow of the Southern Cross, where they are sooty black. There is nothing really noble, though much that is interesting, in the nature of either wolves or hyaenas, but neither of these animals ought to be despised. Hyaenas are big, powerful, dangerous brutes, and at night often show great determination and courage in their attempts to obtain food at the expense of human beings. The following story will illustrate, I think, both the strength and the audacity of a spotted hyaena. I was once camped many years ago near a small native village on the high veld of Mashunaland to the south-east of the present town of Salisbury. A piece of ground some fifty yards long by twenty in breadth had been enclosed by a small light hedge made of thornless boughs, as it was supposed that there were no lions in this part of the country. In the midst of this enclosure my waggon was standing one night with the oxen tied to the yokes, and my two shooting horses fastened to the wheels. On the previous day I had shot three eland bulls, and had had every scrap of the meat as well as the skins and heads carried to my waggon, and on the evening of the following day there were a large number of natives in my camp from the surrounding;" villages. These men had brought me an abundant supply of native beer, ground nuts, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, maize, etc., and as I, on my side, had given them several hundredwcii^hts of meat, both they and my own boys were preparing to make a night of it in my encampment. 100 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. About an hour after dark, the boy who looked after my horses stretched one of the eland hides on the ground behind the wagcj^on, and then pouring a large pot full of half-boiled maize upon it, spread it out to cool before putting it into the horses' nosebags for their evening feed. At this time my whole camp was lighted up by the blazing fires the natives had lit all along one side of the enclosure, and of course within the hedge. Every one was happy, with plenty of fat meat to eat and beer to drink, and the whole crowd kept up an incessant babble of talk and laughter, as only happy Africans can. I was quite alone, as I had been for months, with these good-tempered primitive people, and I may here say that I went to sleep every night in their midst, and always completely in their power (as I had not a single armed follower with me), feeling as absolutely safe, as indeed I was, as if I had been in an hotel in London. I had just finished my evening meal, and was sitting by the fire that had been lighted at the foot of my bed of dry grass, when I saw a big hya:ina burst through the lightly made hedge of boughs on the other side of the waggon and advance boldly into the centre of the enclosure, where he stood for a moment looking about him, plainly visible to every one in the bright light cast by twenty fires. The next moment he advanced to where the eland skin lay spread upon the ground behind the waggon, and seizing it, dashed back with it through the fence and disappeared into the darkness of the niijht, I had several large dogs with me on this trip, which were all lying near the fires when the hyajna entered the encampment from the other side, but as the latter had come up against tlic wind, they had not smelt him. When, howevc.T, he appeared within VI A LARGE HYi^NA KILLED loi a few yards of them, and in the full light of the fires, they of course saw him, and as he seized the eland skin and dashed off with it, scattering my horses' feed to the winds as he did so, the dogs rushed after him, barking loudly. I do not know exactly what the green hide of a bij^ eland bull may weigh, but it is certainly very much heavier than the skin of a bullock, and of course a very awkward thing to carry off, as the weight would be distributed over so much ground. Yet, although this hyaena had only a start of a few yards, my dogs did not overtake him, or at any rate did not force him to drop the skin, until he had reached the little stream of water that ran through the valley more than a hundred yards below my camp. Here we found the dogs guarding it a few minutes later, and again dragged it back to the waggon. I knew the hysena would follow, so I went and sat outside the camp behind a little bush on the trail of the skin, and very soon he walked close up to me. I could only just make out a something darker than the night, but as it moved, I knew it could be nothing but the animal I was waiting for, and when it was very near me I fired and wounded it, and we killed it in the little creek below the camp. It proved to be a very large old male hy:ena, which the Mashunas said had lately killed several head of cattle, besides many sheep and goats. I cannot help thinking that this hyaena must have thrown part of the heavy hide over his shoulders as he seized it, though I cannot say that I saw him do this, but if he did not half carry it, I don't believe he could possibly have gone off with it at the pace he did, for the dogs did not overtake him until he had nearly reached the stream, more than a hundred yards distant from my canij). I am in- clined to the view that this hya;na must have half carried, half dragged this heavy hide, as I once saw 102 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. one of these animals seize a goat by the back of the neck, and throwing it over its shoulders, gallop off with it. This was just outside a native kraal in Western Matabeleland near the river Gwai. I had outspanned my waggon there one evening, and having bought a large fat goat, which must have weighed fifty pounds as it stood, I fastened it by one of its forelegs to one of the front wheels of the waggon. I then had some dry grass cut, and made my bed on the ground alongside of the other front wheel, not six feet distant from where the goat was fastened. It was a brilliant moonlight night and very cold, and I had not long turned in, and was lying wide awake, when I heard the goat give a loud "baa," and instantly turning my head, saw a hyaena seize it by the back of the neck, break the thong with which it was tied to the waggon wheel with a jerk, and go off at a gallop with, as well as I could see, the body of the goat thrown over his shoulders. All my doc^s were lying round the fires where the Kafirs were sleeping when the hyaena seized the goat, and as he had come up against the wind, had not smelt him. l^ut when the goat "baaed" they all sprang up and dashed after the marauder, closely followed by my Kafirs. The dogs cauij^ht up to the hyaena after a short chase and made him drop the goat, which the Kafirs brought back to the waggon. It was quite alive, but as it had been badly bitten behind the ears I had it killed at once. A hyrena once played me a particularly mean trick. I was outspanned one night towards the close of the year 1891 in Mashunaland near the Ilanyani river, not many miles from the town of Salisbury. It was either the night of the full moon or within a day or two of it. At any rate;, it was a gloriously bright moonlight night. I had shot a reedbuck that day, and in the evening placed its VI SUMMARY JUSTICE 103 hind-quarters on a flat granite rock, close to where my cart was standing. I then made my bed on the ground close to the flat rock, and, as the moonlight was so bright, never troubled to surround my camp with any kind of fence. Pulling the blanket over my head, I soon went fast asleep. During the night I woke up, and was astonished to find that it was dark. This I soon saw was owing to a complete eclipse of the moon. When the shadow had passed, and it once more became light, I found that the choice piece of antelope meat which I had placed on the stone close behind my head was gone, and I have no doubt that it had been carried off by a hysena during the eclipse of the moon. Hyaenas are always far bolder and more dangerous in the neighbourhood of native villages than they are in the uninhabited wilderness. In the year 1872 a Bushman Hottentot who had shot a Kafir in cold blood, was beaten to death with clubs by friends of the murdered man close to where my waggon was standing near the Jomani river, in a wild, uninhabited part of Eastern Matabeleland. I did not know anything about this summary adminis- tration of justice until it was over, as it took place at the waggons of some Griqua hunters who were camped near me. The body of the Hottentot was then dragged to a spot less than three hundred yards from my waggon, and quite close to the Griqua encampment. That night several hyaenas laughed and cackled and howled round the corpse from dark to daylicT-ht, but they never touched it. On the second night they once more left it alone, but on the third they devoured it. I do not know why these hyaenas waited until the third night before making a meal off the body of this dead Hottentot, but I imagine that it was b(x-ause they were hyienas of the wilderness, unaccustomed to, and therefore suspicious of the smell of a human being. I have 104 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. noticed, too, that in the wilds hyaenas will often, though not always, pass the carcase of a freshly killed lion without touching it. In any part of the country, however, where there is a considerable native population, and where con- sequently there is little or no game, hyaenas have no fear or suspicion of a dead man. They make their living out of the natives round whose villages they patrol nightly. They soon discover any weak spot in the pens where the goats, sheep, or calves are kept, and kill and carry off numbers of these animals. They often, too, kill full-grown cows by tearing their udders open and then disembowelling them, and will sometimes enter a hut, the door of which has been left open, and make a snap at the head of a sleeping man or woman, or carry off a child. When lying once very weak and ill with fever in a hut in a small Banyai village near the Zambesi, I awoke suddenly and saw a hyaena standing in the open doorway, through which the moon was shining brightly. I lay quite still and he came right inside, but he heard me moving as I caught hold of my rifle, and bolted out, carrying with him a bundle tied up with raw hide thongs. The latter he afterwards ate, but we recovered the contents of the bundle the next morning. Besides being able to dig up the carelessly buried bodies of natives who have died a natural death, the customs of some of the warlike tribes used to pro- vide hyaenas with many a dainty meal. In ICS73 my old friend the late Mr. Frank Mandy — after- wards for so many years the manager of De Beers Compound at Kimberley — saw some natives drag- ging, with thongs attached to the wrists, what he thou(Tht was a dead body across the stony ground outside the native town of Bulawayo.' On going ' Tlie original native tfiwn Iniilt by Lo 15cnL;u!a in iSjo, about twelve miles from the present European city. VI 'WHAT USE IS SHE?' 105 nearer he was horrified to find that the body was that of an old woman, and that she was aHve, On remonstrating with the men who were dragginf^ the poor creature along, and taxing them with their in- humanity, they seemed quite hurt, antl said, " Why, what use is she ? She's an old slave, and altogether past work, and we are going to give her to the hyaenas," They accordingly dragged her down to the valley below Bulawayo and tied her to a tree. My friend had followed and watched them, and that evening, as soon as it was dusk, he and a trader named Grant — who was murdered in Mashunaland by the natives during the rising of 1896 — went down to her with a stretcher, and cutting the thongs that bound her to the tree, carried her up to Mandy's hut, where, however, she died during the night. I do not wish it to be understood that the custom of tying old and worn-out slaves to trees, whilst still alive, to be devoured by hyoenas, was very common, but it cannot have been very unusual either, as Mandy told me that many natives looked on with absolute indifference whilst the old woman whose fate I have described was dragged past them ; so the hyaenas must have got many a good feed in this way, especially round the larger towns. But the native custom which was most advantageous to these animals was the practice of smelling out witches. In Matabeleland, in the time of Umziligazi and his son Lo Bcngula, people were continually being tried and convicted of witchcraft, and very often not only was the actual witch, man or woman, killed, but their families as well, sometimes even all their relations, as in the case of Lotchi. head Enduiia of the town of Induba, who was i)ut to death in iScSS, and the number oi whose wives, children, and other relations who were killed with him amounted to s