GAME IN HEAVY FORESTS. 97 



at all seasons. * In the hot weather, at least during 

 the day time, most of the wild animals here find their 

 resting places, from whence they sally out to the 

 glades and open spaces in the early mornings and 

 evenings and many of them travel long distances in 

 so doing, returning perhaps before daylight to their 

 secluded retreats in the fastnesses of the forest, where 

 it requires the most perfect knowledge of the country 

 and of their daily habits, to enable the hunter to fol- 

 low them with any chance of success. It is here 

 that the services of the local native hunter come 

 in so valuable; his aid being in fact, as we have 

 said, a sine qua non for the European sportsman. 



Even the natives of many countries are sharply 

 divided into plainsmen and forest tribes. This is so 

 in many parts of India and Africa. It is also well 

 exemplified among the red men of America; some 

 of whom call themselves " the people of the plains, " 

 as for example the " Tetouan " division of the Sioux 

 or Dakota nation, whilst another division of the same 

 people call themselves " Wah-pe-tou-an " or " the 

 people of the leaves " because they inhabit the con- 

 fines of a bush region on the margin of the great 

 plains. But their hereditary foes, the Chippeways, are 

 more especially a regular forest tribe, who rarely or 

 never stray far from the shades of their native woods, 

 which form for them both a canopy and a home. Thus 

 it comes about that Indians belonging to the plains 



* There are some exceptions to this rule. But then where heavy 

 timber is, though the surface may be waterless it is practically certain, 

 from a scientific point of view, that the roots penetrate to damp soil it 

 may be at a great depth whence the rootlets by capillary attraction 

 can suck up water. The roots of the date palm, for example, will go 

 down certainly over 30, and possibly 40 feet or more, in quest of 

 the life-giving moisture. 



VOL III. 7 



