THE MIGRATORY MOVEMENTS OF GAME. 49 



Many kinds of wild game, however, do not require 

 water so constantly as domestic animals, they are there- 

 fore able to maintain themselves in the thirst-lands 

 much longer than the human settler and his flocks. 

 It has often been known that in districts where travel- 

 lers and the oxen drawing their waggons have been 

 perishing of thirst, considerable numbers of certain 

 kinds of antelope have still been seen and when shot 

 have proved to be quite fat, and in fine condition. 

 Drought, however, is only one cause of game migra- 

 tions ; and it may be desirable to shortly state the prin- 

 cipal remaining phenomena connected with these 

 movements, which form a very interesting subject of 

 enquiry in all its details. 



In the great South African game country, for in- 

 stance, there are two ways in which game can escape 

 from the thirst-lands into well- watered and fertile 

 grazing countries first by a flight towards the north- 

 wards, which carries them towards the region of the 

 equatorial rains ; secondly by travelling southwards into 

 the Cape Colony, where they enter the temperate 

 zone, and by so doing pass into the region of the 

 variable rains. Though these rains are not always 

 very well marked, still this extreme southern part of 

 Africa, as a general rule, is not subject to the severe 

 droughts of the Karoo region, partly because of occa- 

 sional variable rains, and partly because of the temper- 

 ing influence of the sea breezes. Of course in these 

 migrations into the Cape Colony the game soon came 

 into contact with the Boers and other European settlers, 

 and it was from this section of country in general 

 that the earliest reports of the great herds have been 

 handed down to us. 



VOL. III. A 





