OSTRICHES. 125 



and our worst enemies are the jackals. In lonely, far-off 

 camps they plunder many promising nests ; rolling 

 the eggs away with their paws, sometimes to great 

 distances. Occasionally, too, little chicks fall victims. 

 We waged deadly war against the depredators ; making 

 liberal use of strychnine pills to " take us the foxes, 

 the little foxes/' which, finding no vines to spoil in the 

 Karroo, were instead spoilers of ostrich nests. On a 

 large vine-farm in the Atlas Mountains, where, after 

 leaving the Cape, we spent some months, we were able 

 to note the accuracy of this passage of Scripture in 

 which, I am told, the word rendered " foxes " ought in 

 reality to have been translated "jackals." These 

 animals did indeed work terrible havoc among the 



vines, eating incredible numbers of grapes ; and T 



did much good by his introduction among them of the 

 South African plan of poisoning, to which many suc- 

 cumbed. The pills, enclosed in pieces of fat, are 

 dropped about the veldt ; generally by a man on horse- 

 back, towing behind him a piece of very " high " meat, 

 which, fastened by a riem (narrow strip of hide) to the 

 horse's tail, drags along the ground. By-and-by the 

 jackals, attracted by the odour of meat, come out ; and, 

 following along the route taken by the poisoner, find 

 and eat the tempting pieces of fat. In the morning a 

 good number are sure to be found dead ; the survivors, 

 apparently concluding that there is something very 

 wrong about the place, take themselves off for a time 

 to another neighbourhood ; and the comparative silence 

 which reigns at night is a pleasant change after the 

 chorus of their querulous, uncanny voices. 



