\Yith Flashlight and Rifle -* 



animal world has its underlying recognised law ; tor the 

 young- males in this herd ot gnus are plainly united 

 those who are in their prime, that is in fighting oft" the 

 old hulls and keeping them away from the herd. 'I he 

 old bulls remain like scouts, some hundred paces from 

 the rest. In the famine years of 1899-1900 I was often 

 able to get a bird's-eye view of a kind of serious " war- 

 game " going on between the gnus and the natives, in the 

 dust-swept desert between Kilimanjaro and the Meru 

 Mountains. But no matter how the natives, making use 

 of every inch of covert, tried to approach the herd of gnus, 

 the latter were always able to evade their enemies ; for 

 they were warned by their scouts, the old bulls, who> 

 flanked the herd everywhere. 



In those parts of the velt through which the 

 British Uganda railway takes the traveller to Victoria 

 Nyanza, one often sees large herds of gnus and many 

 other antelopes close to the permanent way. The 

 British authorities have succeeded, by means of very strict 

 regulations, in creating a game-preserve here, in the 

 middle of the great trade-track. The authorities carried 

 out this scheme with iron resolution, and the first trans- 

 gressor of the regulations a highly placed English 

 official -was, according to general belief, mulcted in very 

 heavy damages. Such a thoroughly practical mode of 

 procedure is worthy of all acknowledgment in a district 

 where control is possible. It differs considerably from 

 our " Game Protection System " a system of regulations 

 which may certainly be promulgated, but which cannot 

 be carried out in the far-distant parts of the velt,. 



492 



