64 AFRICA SPEAKS 



way to the spring we came upon a large herd of giraffe, 

 and after chasing them around for a while to get 

 pictures, returned to the road. After another mile or 

 so we beheld a great number of vultures circling low 

 in the sky and turned off into the bush for a look. 

 Gathering vultures always indicate a dead animal, and 

 as often you will find Hons on the carcass, it gives you 

 quite a thrill to stalk the kill and see what's there. 



On this occasion we found a dead zebra without any 

 marks on it to tell what had caused its death. We 

 filmed some vulture pictures, then starting back to the 

 road encountered a second dead zebra with more vul- 

 tures and marabou storks standing in a large circle. As 

 the tails of both these animals were missing, we now 

 concluded they had been killed by some Ikoma hunters, 

 as this was the method employed by them for marking 

 their property, in order to prevent other wandering 

 natives from taking the meat. It is an unwritten law 

 among these savages never to take meat so marked. 

 When a third kill was signaled by the vultures on the 

 slope of a small hill, we made our way through the 

 thorn bushes to investigate, finding two dead zebras, 

 both of which had their tails. Still another vulture 

 and marabou convention attracting our attention, we 

 sallied over to find that the punda milia were indeed 

 having a hard day, for here was the fifth defunct zebra, 

 this one also having its tail in the right place. The 

 score now stood three with tails and two without, 

 which seemed to indicate that the zebra deaths were 

 not due to native hunters. The short rains had set 

 in and these were probably immature animals who were 

 not able to survive the first wet season with tsetse-fly 

 poison in their veins. 



