194 - BIG GAME SHOOTING 
course shooting in the heat of the day has its advantages and 
disadvantages, and some men advocate it in preference to 
the early morning. After feeding, which is always in the early 
morning, and again in the evening, as well as throughout the 
night (though some species of game, notably zebra and several 
antelopes, continue to feed at all hours of the day and 
night), game take up their quarters for the day either in the 
shade of a tree or bush or quite out in the open. When 
once they have found a place to suit them, they will lie 
down, or stand about ruminating, and enjoying their siesta, 
and are not likely to wander about and get into awkward 
positions. 
Game, too, is less watchful in the hot hours, and even the 
sentinel has every appearance of being drowsy and off guard, 
as it stands at ease on three legs (nearly always with its back to 
the wind), with ears* drooping or lying back, and a look of 
general contentment and repose about it, as if conscious that 
its feline enemies are not likely to disturb it, and that it has 
little else to fear. Even should the herd be lying rather 
scattered about, with their heads facing in all directions, they - 
do not appear to be so keen at detecting the approach of the‘ 
stalker as in the morning. Possibly they are either dozing or 
their senses are dulled from general lassitude, and they rely . 
mostly on the sentinel ; or it may be that the haze, which is 
thicker close to the ground, affects their vision in the same 
way as it does that of the stalker. Whether their senses 
are dulled from the effects of the heat, or whether they are 
less watchful because their natural enemies are unlikely to be 
abroad at that time, is difficult to conjecture. At all events, ~ 
if several stalks were made under the same conditions with — 
regard to the place, covert, and wind, some of them upto a ~ 
herd feeding in the early morning, and the others when they — 
were lying down and standing about in the heat of the day, I — 
think that the stalker would find that he would have to exercise — 
his wits against the game’s instinct far less, and would also find ~ 
the beasts much easier to circumvent during the heat of the 
