254 MARKS UPON THE GROUND. 



tides of matter slightly disturbed in position and thrown 

 forward, will show in what direction the game was 

 going, when the trail itself is partially obliterated and 

 no regular footprints are discernible. Bushes on the other 

 hand will generally be seen more or less nibbled by 

 game feeding among them, and twigs, etc., broken. 

 The breaks in the twigs at once point out the direc- 

 tion in which the animal that made them was going. 



There are a number of curious facts connected with 

 marks made upon the ground, which we should be 

 very pleased to discuss, were it not that it involves 

 the consideration of a number of technical details too 

 long and too complicated to do justice to in a chapter 

 set apart, like the present one, to the description of 

 hunting and. shooting on plains; although some of 

 these facts are of the most remarkable character, ex- 

 hibiting the workings of wild nature under aspects 

 which we fear have seldom received much attention 

 from scientific observers, and have certainly, so far as 

 we can ascertain, never been written upon. 



Most of the marks made by man or animal upon 

 the earth's surface are as we know of the most ephe- 

 meral character ; like circles in the water created by a 

 stone cast into it by some thoughtless urchin, they 

 quickly disappear, leaving no trace behind. Those 

 made by the passage of a numerous caravan across 

 the drifting sands of the desert, where they are forth- 

 with obliterated by the wind ; or disturbances made by 

 human workers in stream-beds or in the surface of sea 

 beaches, below high water mark, are typical instances 

 in point, rapidly wiped out of existence by natural 

 causes at once and for ever. 



Yet there are others which, by the operation of 



