STALKING GAME. 



117 



you may be certain that, had you missed seeing it, it would not have missed seeing 

 you, and would probably have given warning of your approach to the one you 

 were carefully stalking. 



On the great open plains the whole secret of success in stalking lies in the 

 giving of plenty of time and patience to the approach of one animal. This does not, 

 of course, suit the man who desires to amass a great quantity of heads in a short 

 trip, and he usually prefers risking long shots in the hopes of some of them coming 

 off, that he may bag his animals without trouble, but the man who goes in for plain- 

 shooting as a sport, and not merely as a rapid means of decorating his walls, will not 

 grudge a certain amount of time spent on one head, more especially if the trophy is 

 an eland or an ory.x. If he wishes to make dead sure of his shot (that is, to get in 

 one at about one hundred and fifty yards or under) he will find that, except under 

 exceptional circumstances, such a shot will entail infinite patience. 



The stalking will be very different to that obtained in more broken country, with 

 its hill and ridges and numerous sharp contours. On the plains a stalk necessitates 

 almost always a series of long crawls and the barkmg of knees and elbows, or long 

 waits ensconced behind solitary small bushes or tufts of grass, with a fierce sun 

 playing on the back all the while. When the grass is at its longest, then, with the 

 requisite amount of patience and fortitude, it is possible to crawl almost anywhere 

 and yet keep out of sight. The stalker then puts himself on a lower plane than the 

 game, and so has the advantage in point of sight of that possessed by the leopard, 

 lately shown in the diagram. Crawling is, however, such fatiguing work, and makes 

 one so breathless, that it is necessary to stop and rest every ten or fifteen yards, while 

 before taking a shot another long pause is necessary to steady down. Leather knee- 

 pads are valuable for this kind of work, and should be made so that they can be 

 easily strapped on before a stalk and taken off again when no longer required. 



It is often possible to avail oneself of a line of tall grasses to make one's way 

 from a bush already safely reached, to a position whence another will cover the 

 animal stalked. When the grass is long it may be used similarly as a means of 

 crossing over a very exposed place. A hand-and-knee approach under cover of a 

 bush is much less tiring than an absolutely flat crawl which is the necessary manner 

 of approach through the ordinary grass of the plains. 



Of perfect cover, in distinction to the imperfect cover of grass and bushes I have 

 been discussing, an ant-hill is about the most useful. I'nfortunatelv for the hunter, 

 however, such is not often found on the plams. 



When a bush grows on the top of an ant-hill it becomes an even more valuable 

 objective to the stalki-r, for this will provide him with head cover if he wishes to 



