STALKINfG GAME. t 23 



enough to approach an animal with so much cover about, but, as a matter of 

 fact, this very cover makes it so difficult. For the cover that is good for the 

 stalker is equally good for the animal, and if it has taken up a position behind 

 some thick bush, while you are searching round and round trying to find a place 

 from which you can spot it, it sees you through its bush and makes oH. 



The easiest country to stalk in is the rolling alternate valley and ridge country, 

 with termite hills and single bushes dotted about. From the top of a ridge you 

 can then often mark down the exact position of an animal and make all your plans 

 for the approach and stalk. 



In the really thick and tangled bush-country, such as round Voi and the lower 

 Tana River, not only is it difficult to stalk, but it is difficult to make any progress 

 through it at all. Moreover, in such country to move silently requires great 

 patience and much practice. 



Directly the country gets thick enough to make stalking at all difficult it is 

 then that the sportsman should take to tracking, as it is the only way of coming up 

 with an animal. Even in the very open bush, easy to make a way through, tracking 

 is indispensable, as fresh tracks if followed will always lead to an animal, whilst 

 aimless wandering about will probably result in little or nothing. Apart from this, 

 directly the bush gets thick enough to make it difficult to move through, it is 

 almost imperative to find the game by tracking alone. For it is impossible to go 

 through a long day moving so silently and carefully amidst the thick undergrowth 

 as to be perfectly noiseless the whole time, and chances may repeatedly be missed for 

 want of sufficient warning. 



Tracks may be looked for, and when found followed to a certain extent, using 

 only average care in walking and passing through the bush silently and stopping to 

 look and listen. When warned by the look of the tracks that the game is in the 

 near neighbourhood, then is the time to proceed with consummate caution and to be 

 more than ever on the alert. It then becomes necessary, if there are leaves and 

 twigs under foot, to tread on tiptoe in each footprint of the animal itself so as to 

 avoid breaking any twigs or cracking any dry leaves. Where the animal has just 

 trodden is the only safe place in which to tread, for in its footsteps nearly all twigs, 

 leaves, etc., will have already been cracked or crushed. Even then the foot must be 

 put down slowly, and, wherever it is impossible to tread in the animal's immediate 

 track, you must test the ground at every step by putting the foot carefully down 

 without at first bringing any weight to bear upon it, until you have ascertained if there 

 is anything likely to make a noise. It is often necessary to remove twigs and leaves 

 from the ground so as to leave a bare space on which to tread. Every branch across 



