CATTLE IN THUNDERSTORMS. 1 09 



" the annual average of such storms is 97, of which the 

 great majority occur in summer, and the lightning is far more 

 brilliant and dangerous than in England; seared patches of 

 grass many yards across may frequently be observed where 

 the electric fluid has struck the ground, and several head of 

 cattle are occasionally killed by one flash." * 



Our own experience with cattle and other domestic 

 animals, during" severe storms of this nature, is that 

 they cease feeding", and generally draw together in 

 groups for protection, where they stand with their 

 heads down, very often around the base of some 

 large tree, when there is one at hand; and thus 

 these accidents, when numbers are struck dead, as 

 related in the case mentioned by Mr. Selous, are com- 

 paratively common in many parts of the world. 



The whole of the great prairie regions of America, 

 for instance, are subject to violent thunderstorms, and 

 one of the severest that we have ever witnessed 

 burst over a party under our command, while far out 

 in the great Indian country, beyond the frontier 

 settlements of the whites, shortly before the War of 

 Secession. In our East Indian Empire also, tremendous 

 thunderstorms are common; those which generally 

 accompany the bursting of the monsoons being some- 

 times of an appalling character. We think it quite worth 

 while to reproduce here the account of one of these events, 

 graphically described by the pen of Mr. Mountstewart 

 Elphinstone, at the beginning of this century. He says 



"The most remarkable rainy season is the S.W. monsoon. 

 In the south of India, this commences about the beginning 

 of June, but it gets later as we advance to the north. Its 

 approach is announced by vast masses of clouds that rise 



* Brown's South African Guide, 1893, p. 47. 



