194 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



course shooting in the heat of the day has its advantages and 

 disadvantages, and some men advocate it in preference to 

 the early morning. After feeding, which is always in the early 

 morning, and again in the evening, as well as throughout the 

 night (though some species of game, notably zebra and several 

 antelopes, continue to feed at all hours of the day and 

 night), game take up their quarters for the day either in the 

 shade of a tree or bush or quite out in the open. When 

 once they have found a place to suit them, they will lie 

 down, or stand about ruminating, and enjoying their siesta, 

 and are not likely to wander about and get into awkward 

 positions. 



Game, too, is less watchful in the hot hours, and even the 

 sentinel has every appearance of being drowsy and off guard, 

 as it stands at ease on three legs (nearly always with its back to 

 the wind), with ears drooping or lying back, and a look of 

 general contentment and repose about it, as if conscious that 

 its feline enemies are not likely to disturb it, and that it has 

 little else to fear. Even should the herd be lying rather 

 scattered about, with their heads facing in all directions, they 

 do not appear to be so keen at detecting the approach of the 

 stalker as in the morning. ' Possibly they are either dozing or 

 their senses are dulled from general lassitude, and they rely 

 mostly on the sentinel ; or it may be that the haze, which is 

 thicker close to the ground, affects their vision in the same 

 way as it does that of the stalker. Whether their senses 

 are dulled from the effects of the heat, or whether they are 

 less watchful because their natural enemies are unlikely to be 

 abroad at that time, is difficult to conjecture. At all events, 

 if several stalks were made under the same conditions with 

 regard to the place, covert, and wind, some of them up to a 

 herd feeding in the early morning, and the others when they 

 were lying down and standing about in the heat of the day, I 

 think that the stalker would find that he would have to exercise 

 his wits against the game's instinct far less, and would also find 

 the beasts much easier to circumvent during the heat of the 



