NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA 



was discovered and put into practice, a few, possibly, 

 of the troop would fall victims ; but one such experi- 

 ence was invariably sufficient, for the whole troop 

 would be evermore specially on their guard against 

 the new danger. The farmer, in this instance, was 

 as ingenious in his devices to destroy the monkeys, as 

 they were in planning out ways to steal his produce. 

 Observing that the raids usually took place in the 

 early hours of the morning, excepting on nights when 

 the moon was shining brightly, the harassed farmer 

 took a gang of labourers with picks and shovels to the 

 scene of the robberies. He sent his sons off in ad- 

 vance with the dogs to the edge of the forest, at the 

 top of the kloof in which the troop of monkeys lived 

 in security, to make a demonstration in order to scare 

 them down into the heart of the bush at the bottom 

 of the kloof, where they could not command a view 

 of the mealie fields. Then he set his men to work 

 and excavated half a dozen pits. These he carefully 

 covered with mealie stalks. During the remainder 

 of the day a man was kept in the vicinity, busy 

 hoeing. This was with the object of deceiving the 

 monkeys, and preventing them from discovering 

 the pits. 



A couple of hours before dawn, a party consisting 

 of the farmer, his three sons, two sturdy daughters, 

 and half a dozen half-caste Hottentots, stole silently 

 through the mealie field, slipped into the pits, ar- 

 ranged the stalks and waited. Shortly after dawn 

 the advance guard of the troop of monkeys appeared. 

 6 



