194 After Big Game in Central Africa 



I have kept its skull. I have killed a scaly ant- 

 eater, an animal partly protected with scales, very 

 curious and very rare, which the natives hardly know. 

 This strange animal did not come to drink ; I do not 

 think it ever drinks. It was rummaging about near 

 our hiding-place, and disquieted us for two reasons ; 

 its noise was unknown to us, and I did not manage 

 to reconstitute its identity. At dawn one morning I 

 sent a bullet at it, and we heard it no more. We 

 found something afterwards, somewhat similar to a 

 large fir cone, which turned out to be the scaly ant- 

 eater rolled into a ball with its scales raised. It 

 opened out when rigor mortis was over. 



Among animals which do not drink, or find 

 underground resources of which we are ignorant, I 

 will also mention en passant the ant-eater, the 

 tortoise, the snake, most species of rodents, the 

 agouti, insectivora, etc., the squirrels of the "niit- 

 sagnas " (baubinia), hares, etc. ; and among those 

 which one never sees at the water, which un- 

 doubtedly drink in places known to them alone, 

 partridges, francolins, klipspringers, etc. 



What proved to me that nowhere was there water 

 except at our four pools were the two daily visits 

 which birds made to them. In the morning and 

 evening all the small species came, quantities of 

 doves and guinea-fowls ; at noon, vultures, mara- 

 bouts, crows, and sparrow-hawks. By remaining for 

 several days at your observation station you could 

 see them appear with great regularity ; some at the 

 time of the first and the last rays of the sun, others 



