THE FOREST. 171 



his empty stomach with rats, shrews, and, perhaps, a hyrax or two, or some other 

 small mammal — anything he can catch, even if it is only a bird. 



The forest is intersected with tracks and game paths broken by bongo and 

 forest-hog. The bushbuck, unlike the bongo, does not push under or through 

 obstacles, but usually jumps over them. The bongo, on the contrary, will practically 

 never jump anything higher than three feet, preferring to push under it. 



Sometimes during the night in the forest one hears the dull crashing and rending 

 of branches, which grows louder and louder, and ends in a splitting burst as of 

 thunder. For a moment one is bewildered, and imagines that some great convulsion 

 of nature is taking place, and waits expectantly for further developments ; but all 

 remains still, more silent than usual, for the hyraces have been momentarily hushed 

 into silence. It is some massive forest giant which has at last succumbed to the 

 insistent attacks of the termites about its roots, and has fallen with a crash down 

 the hillside. Such is night in the forest, a time of activity for all its furred denizens. 



Dawn and day come rather late in the forests, for the morning mists and 

 clouds hang heavy, and the light is long in penetrating. The hyrax takes itself to 

 its hole in a tree trunk, the leopard finds some safe, hidden retreat in dense bush, or 

 lies stretched full length along a lower branch, ready to drop on any unsuspecting 

 animal that passes. 



The duikers and dikdiks finish their morning meals, and then as the day 

 advances, He down in some hidden nook. The elephants have perhaps been up to 

 the bamboos after their drink of the early evening. They have there been snapping 

 and twisting the stout bamboos as if they were blades of grass. Possibly the herd 

 has also visited one of the salt-licks near the sources of some of the forest streams 

 and there dug their tusks into the soft red earth and eaten great lumps, for in the 

 forests there are no red termite hills as in the bush. As the day advances the herd 

 returns to the forest and its members stand in a little group round one or two tree 

 trunks, and there doze, lazily flapping prodigious ears from time to time or rubbing 

 themselves against a tree. The cow elephant may be seen standing with her trunk 

 over her young one as if to keep it out of harm's way. Others may be seen rubbing 

 tusks together or exchanging similar courtesies. 



Such is life in the forest. It cannot be claimed that there is a great variety of 

 game to be found. It is in its tree-life that the forest is so rich, for such animals 

 as colobus, monkeys, genets, hyraces literally abound, and numberless other small 

 mammals as well as a great variety of birds. The game in the forests are only : — 



Elephant. Bushbuck. Dikdik. Forest-hog. 



Bongo. Duiker. Leopard. Bushpig. 



