VI PREFACE 



No. 2 can be utilised with the soundest and most prac- 

 tical results. 



These are questions which, not only from a mili- 

 tary, but from a national and even international, point 

 of view require immediate looking into, and a serious 

 attention to which cannot fail directly to benefit the 

 animal, and indirectly humanity. 



To accomplish this the more readily, also as an in- 

 ducement to the young soldier, who dislikes the dry 

 detail of a purely technical work, I have done my best 

 to make it readable, by clothing it in plain and simple 

 language, and by rendering it interesting through the 

 relation of incidents and anecdotes. 



At the same time, I venture to hope that it will find 

 favour with all those who take an unselfish interest in 

 animals, and with zoologists as well. For though I 

 am not one myself in the strict sense, and have not 

 written from a scientific point of view, I can claim 

 without hesitation the undoubted advantages of having 

 studied deeply the customs and characteristics of this 

 little known and strangely unsympathetic animal, 

 during a long, close, and continuous contact with him, 

 and of having done so on purely and eminently prac- 

 tical principles. 



In laying down rules and in suggesting principles 

 I have done so altogether conditionally, basing them 

 entirely on the broad principle that all rules and 

 regulations depend naturally on circumstance and on 

 the nature of the case, and are therefore subject to 

 alteration. I have endeavoured, however, to look at 

 each question from all sides and from various stand- 

 points. 



Much of the anatomical information I gleaned from 

 interesting conversations that I held during the Nile 



