WILD ANIMALS I HAVE "ET >: 199 



chuck or ground-hog was common in the cliffs 

 and rocks, and they helped to supply our larder. 

 From the time the camp-fire was kindled until 

 we left the locality four days later, the body of 

 every insectivorous and seed-eating bird, every 

 hyrax and every rat and mouse that we skinned, 

 was cleaned and thrown into a pot of boiling 

 rice. 



At the expiration of a day the contents of 

 that pot had grown to wonderful, not to say 

 questionable, proportions, but diminished with 

 equal rapidity as each onslaught was made upon 

 it. Our stay was so limited and the locality 

 so valuable, from a naturalist's standpoint, that 

 we wasted no time waiting for meals. We ate 

 when we were hungry, regardless of each other's 

 society, and the last man to leave camp piled 

 faggots on the fire and the first one to return 

 rekindled it. In this manner our "vaudeville 

 stew," as we learned to call it, was ready day 

 and night, and, unlike the traditional "watched 

 pot," it always boiled. In consequence, our 

 culinary duties were few, although, of course, it 

 took five times as long to cook meat at that 

 high altitude as it would in the lowlands. The 

 coffee-pot always stood near the fire, so a few 



