98 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



well-drilled packs of from ten to thirty or even sixty- 

 individuals, these terrible hounds attack practically 

 any four-footed thing they can overpower, drawing 

 cover after cover with the persistence of trained 

 beagles. As related by Thunberg, they show almost 

 human intelligence in endeavouring to encircle their 

 quarry. The hounds run mute on scent, their close 

 packed ranks captained by successive leaders as the 

 foremost dogs grow weary, and whipped in by 

 enthusiastic comrades. Gemsbok and sable, blue 

 wildebeest and waterbuck, in spite of their size and 

 strength, are hunted by these self-trained Nimrods, 

 whose long unswerving gallop patters mercilessly 

 over the veldt ; the game being weakened by a 

 series of quick snapping bites till it stands exhausted 

 at bay. It is then pulled down, despatched and 

 devoured with ghastly rapidity. These dogs do not 

 limit themselves to wild-killed prey : they ravage the 

 flocks of the Cape farmers, and though now much 

 diminished in the Colony still constitute a serious 

 factor in the annual tale of losses.^ It is said that a 

 pack of wild dogs once inside a sheep fold will not 

 leave till they have killed every one. Uno avulso, 

 non deficit alte7\ The hounds will slay sixty or 

 seventy in a night, and by dawn be twenty miles 

 off; being as elusive and migratory as the famous 

 De Wet. Nor do they limit their operations to 



1 Hunting clogs still remain in the Addo and Fish River Bush. In 

 Thunberg's time they even infested the flats between the baj's of 

 Saldahna and St. Helena in Western Cape Colony. 



