204 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



Buffaloes are seldom found far from water and 

 bush, or dense reed beds. They associate in herds 

 of from fifty to two or three hundred, drinking 

 regularly at evening, when they bathe and wallow, 

 afterwards feeding through great part of the night 

 and early morning. They drink again in hot 

 weather at sunrise, and after another graze betake 

 themselves, as the sun gets hot, to thick bush and 

 low forest, or the shelter of high reed beds, where 

 they rest and chew the cud. For a short distance 

 the buffalo can run as fast as a horse, but from his 

 bulk and conformation he has not the staying power 

 of the antelopes. Very often these animals are 

 attended by tick birds, just as is the rhinoceros, 

 and, as in the case of that creature, they find them of 

 much service in giving warning of the approach of 

 danger. The flesh of a young buffalo cow, fat and 

 in good condition, is excellent eating quite equal to 

 good beef. The marrow bones, too, are delicious. 

 The calves are dropped in most parts of Africa 

 between the end of December and March. By 

 the Boers the buffalo is called buffel. Native names 

 are : Zulu, Swazi, and Matabele, inyati ; Bechuana, 

 nari ; Barotse, nadi ; Swahili, mbogo and nyati. 



The Abyssinian buffalo (Bos caffer aequinoctialis\ 

 is, of the other four members of this family found in 

 Africa, by far the nearest ally of the Cape species. 

 So near a relative is it, that good naturalists have 

 been in doubt whether it is not merely a local variety 

 of the more southern form. In appearance it is very 

 similar, but it is nearly a foot lower in stature. 



