WHAT IS LEARNT FROM SPOOR. I4I 



Every sportsman says that he is anxious to obtain an animal such as kudu or 

 bongo. Yet will he trek through a kudu and bongo country without a halt, in order 

 to get to some plain where he may shoot zebra and hartebeest and waterbuck. Why 

 is this ? Often because he does not know that the other game animals are near. 

 More often though, he finds them too much trouble to hunt, or thinks that all animals 

 ought to be as easily found and shot as are the plain-dwellers. 



One hears that Baringo is the only place in the country in which kudu are to be 

 found. This is not true, for there are other places in which these animals may be 

 had if they are sought for with care. A knowledge of the look of their spoor 

 enables one to do this. To the outdoor naturalist a knowledge of the look of spoor 

 is of as much value as, if not of more value than, to the hunter. 



You may go through years of travel and hunting in Africa and yet have never 

 seen a ratel, otter, antbear, genet, porcupine, zorilla, or numerous other little 

 creatures. The reason for this is that these animals are strictly nocturnal in their 

 habits, and in the daytime lie up in safe retreats such as holes, caves, and hollow 

 trees, and therefore are hardly ever come upon or found accidentally, so that, were 

 it not for seeing their spoor about, you would nev^er suspect that such numbers of 

 these creatures existed and were living all round you. Although you never have the 

 chance of observing their doings, you can at least note their spoors and learn from 

 them a great deal about their habits, food, and ways of life. 



Perhaps I ought to have omitted the antbear from my enumeration above, for 

 after you have stumbled through the long grass into a few of this creature's holes and 

 nearly sprained your ankle several hundreds of times, you are quite ready to admit 

 its ubiquity without requiring the further evidence obtained from a careful study of 

 its spoor. Other of the nocturnal animals, such as the hyaena, jackal, hyrax, rather 

 thrust themselves upon one's attention by their nightly serenade. It is the more 

 silent creatures which escape notice. 



The use, then, of a knowledge of different kinds of spoor is the study of the 

 habits of the most wary, lesser-known, and nocturnal animals. For the sportsman's 

 purpose, however, the study of only a few of these will suffice. 



I will give here a brief description of the different families of spoor, but any sports- 

 man who wishes to learn the size, shape, and appearance of all spoors, such as elephant, 

 rhino, hippo, giraffe, buffalo, kudu, roan, sable, and other kinds, those of many of 

 the smaller mammals, such as porcupine, genet, serval, mongoose, etc., I must refer 

 him to the book I mentioned before, namely, " Central African Game and its Spoor." 



Between spoors of various members of a tribe, or family, there will generally be 

 found a strong resemblance. So much is this so that, if you know well the spoor 



