HUNTING IN THE SOTIK 185 



less within a hundred and fifty yards, while the zebras, 

 tommies, and big gazelles which were his companions fled 

 in panic; and I left him still standing, as I walked after the 

 gazelles, to kill a buck for the table. The game is usually 

 sensitive to getting the hunter's wind; but on these plains 

 I have again and again seen game stand looking at us within 

 fairly close range to leeward, and yet on the same day 

 seen the same kind of game flee in mad fright when twice 

 the distance to windward. Sometimes there are inexplicable 

 variations between the conduct of beasts in one locality and 

 in another. In East Africa the hyenas seem only occasion- 

 ally to crunch the long bones of the biggest dead animals; 

 whereas Cuninghame, who pointed out this fact to me, 

 stated that in South Africa the hyenas, of the same kind, 

 always crunched up the big bones, eating both the marrow 

 and fragments of the bone itself. 



Now and then the game will choose a tree as a rubbing 

 post, and if it is small will entirely destroy the tree; and I 

 have seen them use for the same purpose an oddly shaped 

 stone, one corner of which they had worn quite smooth. 

 They have stamping grounds, small patches of bare earth 

 from which they have removed even the roots of the grass 

 and bushes by the trampling of their hoofs, leaving nothing 

 but a pool of dust. One evening I watched some zebras 

 stringing slowly along in a line which brought them past 

 a couple of these stamping grounds. As they came in 

 succession to each bare place half the herd, one after an- 

 other, lay down and rolled to and fro, sending up spurts of 

 dust so thick that the animal was hidden from sight; while 

 perhaps a companion, which did not roll, stood near by, 

 seemingly to enjoy the dust. 



