240 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. 



wonderful dexterity. In the silence of night his voice 

 is so distinctly audible from the homestead that you 

 would imagine him to be close by, though in reality he 

 is far off in one of the kloofs of the mountains. One 

 night, as we strolled up and down near the house, 

 enjoying the bright moonlight, a loud chorus of distant 

 baboons to which we were listenino^ was suddenly in- 

 terrupted, evidently by the spring of a hungry leopaid, 

 the moment's silence being followed by the agonized 

 and prolonged yells of the victim. 



Now and then Cyiiocephalus, or, as the Boers ironi- 

 cally call him, "Adonis," gets too troublesome, and war 

 has to be carried into his camp. Of no avail against 

 him are those neat little strychnine pills, enclosed in 

 tempting pieces of fat, by means of which Anubis is 

 so successfully sent to his account. No vegetable 

 poison has the slightest effect on the baboon's iron 

 constitution, and indeed, if there exists any poison at 

 all capable of killing him, it is quite certain that with 

 his superior intelligence he would be far too artful to 

 take it; and when the fiat for his destruction has gone 

 forth a well-organized attack has to be made on him 

 with dogs and guns. He can show fight, too, and the 

 dogs must be well trained and have the safety of 

 numbers to enable them to face him ; for in fiofhtinor 

 he has the immense advantage of hands, with which 

 he seizes a doof and holds him fast while he inflicts a 

 fatal bite throuo^h the loins. Indeed, for either door or 

 man, coming to close quarters with Adonis is no trifling 

 matter. 



