226 THE GAME OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA. 



In out-of-the-way countries, very pressing needs of the stomach may occasionally 

 make the sportsman do what he otherwise would not do, but if everyone acted up to 

 these few simple rules, there would hardly be any necessity to make any game-laws. 

 Unfortunately there are great numbers of people who seem to be endeavouring 

 to establish reputations as big-game hunters, simply by killing large quantities of 

 perfectly harmless and easily shot animals. There are also numbers of other persons 

 who, taking advantage of the accessibility of British East Africa in modern times, 

 and knowing nothing about shooting, are yet let loose annually on the game with 

 rifles and unlimited ammunition to wound or scare game as they think fit. 



I am sure that most of these people offend through pure thoughtlessness or 

 ignorance. They see plenty of game and think it inexhaustible, and they do not 

 realise the amount they are wounding or the harm they are working. Moreover, 

 they base their ideas of what is "sporting" and what is "non-sporting" either on 

 the shooting they have been accustomed to indulge in at home, where numbers 

 alone make a good bag, or from what a native or Somali gun-bearer tells them. 



One of the most common malpractices is the long-range independent firing at 

 game. Parties of so-called sportsmen turn up and go out in a drove together, each 

 followed by several gun-bearers carrying weapons of assorted sizes, when, directly 

 game is seen, without any pretence at a stalk, fire is opened, and it is positively 

 dangerous to be anywhere in the vicinity. Before coming to East Africa I could 

 not have believed that a party could go out and expend perhaps fifty or a hundred 

 rounds of ammunition in a day and come back brazenly in the evening to be 

 congratulated on bagging an undersized gazelle. No attempt is made to follow 

 wounded animals, and the number of these must be very great. If a man kills one 

 animal out of fifty shots it is not within reason to suppose that whilst one bullet out of 

 the fifty hit a vital spot the other forty-nine all completely missed the animals fired 

 at. Even an experienced hand firing at medium ranges is sometimes at a loss to 

 know if he has hit an animal or not. It is only on the open plains that such 

 performances can be indulged in. 



The best training for a sportsman is to commence in thick bush-country, and, 

 when he has mastered the bushcraft, required in such parts to obtain a certain 

 measure of success, he will feel no inclination for the very tame shooting of the 

 plains. At most, if he is very keen on heads, he will only take toll of a few 

 selected ones, but he will ridicule the idea of anyone considering himself a hunter 

 on the plains. " Browning " herds is an error not so common. In this case the 

 firer trusts to the most prodigious fluke to bring down an animal. Again, this fluke 

 is still more prodigious if the animal brought down is a good one. 



