io6 ANIMAL LIFE IN AFRICA 



for by its restless habits and the vast areas over which it 

 unceasingly roams. It is met with alike in open and in 

 bush country, wherever game exists, water is to be had, 

 and the forest is not so dense as to impede its pursuit of 

 prey. It is sociable, associating in bands, the size of 

 which is largely dependent upon the food-supply of the 

 district. The pack which hunts the country between 

 the Sabi and Crocodile Rivers in the Transvaal Game 

 Reserve, and which ranges over an area of some 1500 

 square miles, well stocked with impala and reedbuck, 

 consisted, before it had been artificially reduced in 

 numbers, of between sixty and seventy individuals. A 

 second pack, having a very wide range, from the Sabi 

 on the south to the Olifants River on the north, and 

 from the foothills of the Drakensberg on the west, nearly 

 to the Limpopo River on the east, was never quite so 

 numerous, in spite of the wider area at its disposal. In 

 early South African days Gordon-Cumming and others 

 have recorded bands of several hundreds, and, in view 

 of the enormous numbers of the herbivorous animals then 

 existing, there was probably nothing unusual in such a 

 sight. 



Hunting Dogs mainly hunt between the first streak 

 of dawn and the first hour after sunrise, and again from 

 about an hour before sunset until dark. When the 

 moon is good, however, they often pursue the chase far 

 into the night, and once, under a full moon, they pulled 

 down a half-grown male waterbuck close to my camp 

 at Tshokwana about 12.30 A.M. At other times their 

 rallying cries have been heard as late as 10 P.M., while I 

 have known them hunt all day in cloudy and cool weather. 

 Normally, however, the morning hunt ceases soon after 

 sunrise ; the scattered units, mutually guided by the 

 assembly call, join up, and, after a short rest, proceed 



