HOOFED ANIMALS 3 



It is true that the more strictly forest species of antelopes 

 generally speaking browsers are decidedly less sociable 

 than those favouring a more open country, and that they 

 appear to rely largely on the concealment provided by 

 the denseness of the covert, and their own individual 

 senses, for protection. Plain-dwelling animals, on the 

 other hand, associated in large herds and, when possible 

 avoiding long grass, trust to the added facilities for 

 detecting approaching foes, provided by numbers and 

 an extensive field of view. 



But in all these matters it is very difficult to come to 

 any definite conclusion or to lay down any hard and fast 

 rules ; possibly because we do not know what causes of 

 long standing may have combined to influence animals 

 out of their original modes of life, and to drive them to 

 seek surroundings not originally native to them. Indeed, 

 the more personal experience one has of wild animals 

 and their ways, the more clearly it stands out how much 

 caution must be exercised both in making up the mind 

 regarding the factors which influence their individual 

 and collective actions, and even in forming any theories 

 respecting them, except those of the most general 

 character. It may be that, during a considerable period, 

 certain events have been observed to take place with such 

 marked regularity as to give rise to the impression that 

 they are the rule. Just, however, as the problem appears 

 comfortably solved, the observer is confronted by a whole 

 sequence of incidents of so contrary a nature as com- 

 pletely to undermine the very foundations of the theory, 

 and the mind is left floundering once more in the slough 

 of uncertainty, whence it had fondly believed itself to 

 have emerged. 



To him who has spent time and taken trouble in 

 studying the ways of African fauna under natural con- 



