102 HABITS OF WILD ANIMALS BY DAY. 



places for every kind of game. But as Sir Samuel 

 Baker explains 



" The nature of most wild animals is to seek cover at 

 sunrise, and to come forth at sunset also unless the traveller 

 is well accustomed to wild sports, he either passes animals 

 without observing them, or they see him, and retreat before 

 he remarks them." * 



And thus it is quite easy to understand how it often 

 happens that planters, living in such a neighbourhood, 

 may pass even years in the country without ever see- 

 ing a wild elephant or much large game of any kind- 

 just as an Englishman may pass his life in a hunting 

 country and rarely or never see a fox, unless when 

 it is driven out into the open by hounds. It may 

 therefore be said that the wilder game in a great forest 

 country is as a rule rarely seen, unless the hunter 

 knows where to find it, and goes out on purpose to 

 look for it; a man otherwise employed may pass a 

 long time before he accidentally catches sight of it, 

 and even then he generally comes upon it suddenly, 

 at a time and place where he was least expecting to 

 find it. 



The same observations may to a certain extent be 

 held to apply, with varying degrees of accuracy, to 

 all great forest countries, whose umbrageous recesses 

 may be traversed for long distances before any living 

 representatives of the wilder and finer kinds of forest 

 game are actually sighted by the expectant traveller; 

 the visible evidences of their existence being generally 

 for the most part confined to footprints, and other 

 traces of their presence, which it requires the trained 



* Eight Years in Ceylon, by Samuel W. Baker, 1874. 



