,:;2 THE GAME OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA. 



For the animal, as a rule, waits but for one momentary glance, and then, directly the 

 rifle goes up, turns about and bolts. The shot is but a snapshot, yet it will be at 

 short range. It is during this brief moment that the sportsman must decide whether 

 the head is good enough or not to bring to bag. If the hunter has only seen the 

 animal fairly for the first time at this critical moment, he has then also to decide as to 

 which species and sex the animal belongs before he can gauge the head. 



An animal when grazing continually lifts its head to stare in different directions, 

 and will often stare for a considerable time in one particular direction before continuing 

 its grazing. If this lengthy stare happens to be in your direction it often bluffs you 

 into thinking that you have been detected, but an animal when it really does sight 

 something generally stands erect, and usually turns or wheels round either 

 partially or wholly facing the object. So if the animal, when looking towards you, 

 is still crouched over its grazing, but with its head up, you may assume that it has 

 seen nothing to alarm it, and that it is only taking the ordinary precautionary 

 measures of an animal on the look-out. If, on the other hand, when it looks in 

 your direction, it starts bolt upright or wheels round facing you, you make take 

 it that it has seen you ; but if you are behind imperfect cover or in deep shadow, 

 you may remain in perfect confidence that it will not see you so long as you do 



not move. 



The only other remark I have to make about this kind of hunting is that you 

 should keep in shadow as much as possible when walking, and pass from the shady 

 side of one clump to that of the next. 



Hunting in bush-country, you may spend day after day without seeing a single 

 animal, but it would be unwise to deduce from this that there were no animals in the 

 bush, for it is impossible to estimate how many animals you have just missed seeing, 

 and how many animals have seen you first and so taken to their heels without giving 

 any warning of their presence. You cannot expect to find as many animals in the 

 bush as on the plains, for the grazing is nothing like so luxuriant. 



If you were to imagine the plains all covered with thick bush, you could quite 

 realise how few of the many herds of game roaming there would be visible under the 

 circumstances. If you took an imaginary line across and supposed that this was 

 the line you would traverse, and that your vision was restricted to fifty yards on either 

 side of this line, you would find that very few animals came within its limits. More- 

 over these very few animals would represent the only ones that it would be possible 

 for you to strike across during the course of a day's hunting. Then from these few 

 you must deduct the animals that might get your wind or hear or see you before you 

 saw them, and you must also remember that the bush is less thickly stocked with 



