36 THE GAME OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA. 



I'\ir whatever animals dwell there are little known or quite vinknown in more northern 

 and southern Africa. Moreover, so difficult is it to penetrate into the heart of the 

 great forests that these denizens are little studied and little known to science. 



Before leaving the different types of country it may be remarked that those 

 animals which inhabit indiscriminately two or more kinds of country generally take 

 to the most difficult on being alarmed. Those animals that only know the plain leave 

 the edges and seek the centre for safety. Those that inhabit both plain and bush 

 generally leave the plain and take to the bush on being disturbed. Those that inhabit 

 both bush and forest often leave the bush and make for the forest when come upon 

 in the former. If come upon in the latter, they only push farther into the recesses. 

 The water-dwelling animals, on being alarmed, will take to water or swamps. 



(iv.) The Effect on Game of the Habits of Other Animals and Mankind. 

 The relations between animals living in the same country are chiefly : — 



(a) The relations existing between the beast of prey and the beast preyed upon. 



(b) The relations existing between animals which, although of different species, 

 have one food in common. 



To take the first of these. 



Game have often to modify their habits considerably to avoid beasts of 

 prey, and the latter have subsequently to modify theirs to meet these altered 

 habits. Thus, in a wood abounding with leopard, it is seldom that baboon come 

 down to the ground, or, at any rate, leave the trees for any distance. In other 

 places they may be seen trooping out in the open hunting for centipedes and 

 the other delicacies that they delight in. In places where lion have been much 

 hunted they learn to roar little, and are sometimes almost completely silent, whereas 

 m other and less-visited districts they usually roar incessantly. The leopard, having 

 to deal with much more wary animals than has the lion, is correspondingly more 

 cunning. Furthermore, the balance of nature is often so intricately arranged that the 

 presence, or even some peculiarity in habit, of some one animal may affect a number 

 of others indirectly. Many instances of these are adduced by Darwin and Wallace, 

 a well-known example being the case of the number of cats in a district affecting the 

 honey supply. 



The immediate result of two or more species of animals having one food in 

 common is to cause an unconscious rivalry between these species. This directly 

 tends to the improvement of both species, unless one of these species improves so 

 rapidly as to oust the other from the arena. When this takes place the inferior 

 species dwmdles and probably finally becomes extinct. ll is prejudicial to any 



