113 THE GAME OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA. 



favourable, this preliminary part of the stalk may lead within range of the game. 

 Such occasions might be when the game is grazing near a deep-cut watercourse or 

 above the banks of a stream, in which cases the valleys could be followed up to 

 a point opposite the game. 



Before doing so it would be necessary to note down and commit very carefully 

 to memory the shapes and appearances of two or more trees, bushes, or other objects 

 near the spot at which the watercourse is to be left. When these points are arrived 

 at the stalker then knows that he is at the spot nearest the game, and so may crawl 

 up the slope. 



It is impossible to note too carefully the shapes or peculiarities of any objects 

 chosen, as there will always be found a hundred similar objects when close quarters 

 are reached ; or, again, it may prove that some of the objects originally selected are 

 not visible from the new position. 



If only one object has been chosen, and that has not been very carefully 

 viewed from several different positions, then other objects of a similar nature near 

 to it will afterwards be found very misleading. I remember a case in point, when I 

 was sketching and wished to select a position on a hill a few miles off. Amongst 

 all the trees and bushes on the hill was one conspicuous object which, with my 

 naked eye, even at that distance, I could see was a candlearbra euphorbia, so I 

 selected this as a mark, but when I arrived at the hill I was aghast to find that there 

 were candlearbras at every few yards, in fact, that the hill was covered with them. 

 Everywhere I went on that hill were lean, gaunt candlearbras standing up. The one 

 that had appeared so conspicuous at a distance had had a white-looking background 

 of open plain, caused by the dried grass. Against this my candlearbra had 

 appeared almost as conspicuous as if it had been on the sky-line, whilst all the 

 others, having had a dark background of thick bush and shade, had been quite 

 invisible at my original range. Fortunately, I had noticed another point about my 

 candlearbra, and that was that there was a little open space on the hill just above it, 

 and that the bush ran up in a V-shape, nearly bisecting this open space. In this 

 tongue of bush stood the euphorbia. Of all the euphorbias on the hill, I found 

 there was no other that grew in a similar position, though some had open spaces 

 near them. So, through noting down in the first instance more points than seemed 

 absolutely necessary, I saved myself from defeat or, at any rate, from a weary tramp 

 back to the original point of observation. 



Now to turn to the second part of stalking, the appreciation of cover. 



There is perfect cover, such as a rock, tree-trunk, or ant-hill, giving a complete 

 and opaque cover, and there is imperfect cover, such as bushes or grass, which can be 



