308 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



would seem as if every particle of moisture in the big bodies 

 would be sucked out. A white man or an average native 

 will die of thirst within forty-eight hours in the same regions 

 where these big beasts thrive without any water. Doubtless 

 there are some bulbs, some plants, from which they get a 

 little moisture. But the matter is so puzzling that it would 

 be well worth while for a first-class field naturalist, of the 

 stamp of Carl Akeley for instance, to study it carefully in 

 the field. Such studies of the life-histories of the big game 

 would be more valuable than any series of specimens of all 

 but the very rarest species. 



We needed for the museum two specimens of the reticu- 

 lated giraffe, a bull and a cow. A cow was killed after a 

 good gallop, and a bull by fair stalking. The latter was the 

 only giraffe we ever thus killed, as, with the exception of the 

 ostrich, they are the wariest African game and the hardest 

 to stalk; and when we examined the dead body we found 

 that the explanation was not the skill of the stalker but 

 the fact that the bull, a very old one, was evidently be- 

 ginning to lose his eyesight. After these two specimens 

 were secured, we did not have to molest giraffes again, and 

 devoted what time we could to studying their habits. 



Any man who is much in the wilderness will have occa- 

 sional queer experiences with animals, which are of interest 

 but mean nothing; and other experiences which mean a great 

 deal but the meaning of which it is difficult to unravel. It 

 is hard either to observe or to understand the psychical and 

 mental workings of animals and the strange individual and 

 communal actions which sometimes interrupt the monoto- 

 nously simple routine of their ordinary lives. As an instance 

 of the first kind of experience, while hunting along the North- 



