I 



CH. IX] EMOTIONS OF GAME 197 



tails, as if jerked by electricity. In the Sotik the topis 

 all seemed to have calves of about the same age, as if 

 born from four to six months earlier. The young of 

 the otiier game were of every age. The males of all 

 the antelopes fouglit much among themsehes. The 

 gazelle bucks of both species would face one anotlier, 

 their heads between the fore-legs and the horns level 

 with tlie ground, and each would punch his opponent 

 until the hair flew. 



Watching the game, one was struck by the intensity 

 and the evanescence of their emotions. Civilized man 

 now usually passes his life under conditions which 

 eliminate the intensity of terror felt by his ancestors 

 when death by ^■iolence was their normal end, and 

 threatened them during every hour of the day and 

 night. It is only in niglitmares that the average 

 dweller in civilized countries now undergoes tlie hideous 

 horror which was the regular and frequent portion of his 

 ages-vanished forefathers, and which is still an everyday 

 incident in the lives of most wild creatures. But the 

 dread is short-lived, and its horror vanishes with instan- 

 taneous rapidity. In these wilds the game dreaded the 

 lion and the other Hesh-eating beasts rather than man. 

 We saw innumerable kills of all the buck, and of zebra 

 the neck being usually dislocated, and it was evident 

 that none of the lions victims, not even the truculent 

 wildebeest or huge eland, had been able to make any 

 fight against him. The game is ever on the alert 

 against this greatest of foes, and every herd, almost 

 every individual, is in imminent and deadly peril every 

 few days or nights, and of course suffers in addition 

 from countless false alarms. But no sooner is the 

 danger over than the animals resume their feeding, or 

 love-making, or their fighting among themsehes. Two 



