384 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



supposed was a proof of exhaustion, whereas they were all 

 entirely fresh. 



Often we saw a bull hartebeest practising for a fight, 

 so to speak; he would get down on his knees on the bare 

 plain, or against the side of one of the huge ant-hills, and 

 butt and horn the ground, so that his face and horns and 

 knees would be covered with earth. Sometimes a whole 

 herd would stroll toward a bare bit of soil which they 

 evidently used as a stamping-ground, and on reaching it 

 would stamp and kick up the dust and roll in it; the spot 

 might be level or it might be the side of an ant-hill. Such 

 a place would be trodden into bare, pulverized dust by the 

 sharp hoofs. Zebra also came to these places to roll. Gen- 

 erally the hartebeest scattered their droppings anywhere, 

 like most other game; but several times we came on places 

 — one such area was thirty feet across — in which many 

 hartebeest had dropped their dung for quite a long period 

 of time, evidently resorting thither for that purpose. The 

 Grant gazelle sometimes showed the same habit, and it 

 seemed to be usual with the little dikdik. The herds of 

 hartebeest sometimes visit the salt or mineral licks like 

 the other game; in such places we have seen acres of ground 

 covered with gullies and hollows, licked out by the tongues 

 of countless generations of wild creatures. Like most 

 game, they are tormented by hosts of insects — biting flies, 

 loathsome bot-flies, and ticks. The ticks swarm in unbe- 

 lievable numbers on the Kapiti and Athi Plains; elsewhere 

 they are only ordinary pests. They weaken and even kill 

 horses; but, curiously enough, the game seem to thrive in 

 spite of them. We have seen rhinos, wildebeest, zebra, 

 and hartebeest with their groins, their armpits, the bare 



