380 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



The bison and the barren-ground caribou were always far 

 more plentiful than the moose, just as the hartebeest and 

 zebra are far more abundant than the bongo. Unquestion- 

 ably the plains-dwellers in the absence of man can hold their 

 own better against brute foes, and thrive better, than the 

 forest-dwellers; and this continues to be true in the presence 

 of scattered savages in a low stage of development; but the 

 conditions are reversed as soon as industrial man appears, 

 especially when he is a rifle-bearer, and then the plains- 

 dwellers vanish from the land long before the beasts of the 

 dense woodland have grown scarce. 



In many parts of East Africa the grass is so good and 

 the water so plentiful that the hartebeest stay perma- 

 nently in one neighborhood all the year round, and, more- 

 over, each herd or group in that neighborhood may have a 

 special beat not more than a couple of miles or so in diam- 

 eter. Ordinarily the local range is somewhat larger, but 

 not much, for when circumstances are favorable it is aston- 

 ishing to see how limited the home range of such an animal 

 is. If there are seasonal droughts, however, the harte- 

 beest may all, or nearly all, shift in a body to new pas- 

 turage; but when we were there there did not seem to be 

 such common and marked migrations among them as 

 among the wildebeest and oryx. If the land is very dry 

 and the pasturage poor the size of the home range and 

 the likelihood of wandering for each herd or individual 

 are greatly increased. In very dry wastes the wandering 

 may be continuous. 



It is much easier to watch and study the habits of the 

 game of the bare plains than those of forest or bush country. 

 At many of our longer camps we grew to know various 



