284 WATCHING WILD GAME BY NIGHT. 



habits of wild game, as they stood in fancied security, 

 at home, in their own haunts, drinking their fill beside 

 the life-giving waters. One could at such times learn 

 more of their ways than by hunting or seeing them 

 afar oif in the plain or forest, by day, much as one 

 sees more of the individual man at his own dinner 

 table, and by his own fireside of an evening, than 

 one does of him in the busy haunts of commerce or 

 of dissipation, surrounded by the whirl of city life. 



Now, no one had a better opportunity of speaking 

 with authority on such matters than Mr. C. J. Andersen, 

 who passed twenty-five years of his life wandering 

 through the great South African wilderness. His was 

 a truly wonderful career, in the various capacities of 

 traveller, explorer, naturalist, and hunter, and with his 

 almost unexampled experience and great knowledge of 

 wild beasts and their ways, we think anything he may 

 have said on such a subject may be very safely received 

 as coming from a leading authority. 



We mention this with some minuteness of detail 

 because in the works of more than one hunter of 

 reputation, a different view is taken of this matter of 

 night-shooting, which is held to be at best but a weari- 

 some and by no means very successful means of 

 killing game. We are however quite aware that like 

 everything else it has its drawbacks, and that it can 

 only be followed on special occasions with any con- 

 siderable amount of success. 



For instance, there should be good moonlight, other- 

 wise it becomes almost impossible to distinguish the 

 forms of animals against the dark background of bush, 

 which in general surrounds such spots; for be it remem- 

 bered that wherever there is water, there bush will in 



