CHAPTER 11. 



HOW TO LOOK FOR SPOOR. 



IN the last chapter we have suggested that the true hunter will endeavour to learn 

 as much as possible of woodcraft, and should have the ability to do his own 

 tracking when need be. 



We will now endeavour to show how he should begin to do this. It is as 

 impossible for him to learn how to track from a book as it is to read a book on 

 cricket and be able to play immediately. For both he needs years of practical 

 experience, but we will attempt to put before him the chief points he should notice, 

 and the lines on which his observations should be based. 



He should learn as much as he can of the languages of his native hunters, 

 so that he may profit by their knowledge and experience. The first words he should 

 learn are the names of all the animals likely to be met with, and those for such common 

 things as spoor, blood, male, female, wound, bullet, tree, near, far, stand, gallop, &c. 

 These will take him some way. 



When he sees a track he should ask to what animal it belongs, and every time 

 the natives see a track which he does not, he should make them point it out to 

 him. Just at first many tracks will look the same, while others of the same animal will 

 look different. He will soon, however, distinguish the different forms of tracks that 

 various animals leave, independently of their size. He should try as soon as possible 

 to form an idea of the size and shape of the track of a full-grown bull of each species. 

 The spoor of the young animals are generally more confusing, as they do not seem to 

 assume their characteristic shape till full grown; but this is the less important insomuch 

 as it is presumably the full-grown bull that it is his ambition to shoot ; and, moreover, 

 where there are young there are almost certain to be one or more adult animals. As 

 an example of the difference between the character of the tracks of the young 

 and the full-grown animal of the same species, compare those shown of a young 

 eland with that of the bull. In other buck the spoor of the young has an unformed 

 appearance, which shows it to be that of a young animal, and not a full-grown one of 

 a smaller species. A collection of the spoor of full-grown animals of different species 

 has been made in the hopes that they may be useful to the beginner ; but we regret 

 to say that, although they have been drawn to scale from carefully-chosen 



