HUNTING-DOGS, LYNXES, CATS, AND OTHERS 



During the days which I spent in the mountain wilder- 

 ness watching the elephants, I was in closer communion 

 with nature, which is there both wild and beautiful. 

 From my high stand, way up in the solitude of the 

 cloud-covered world of mountains, I daily looked for 

 hours into the broad valleys filled with a luxuriant vege- 

 tation, spying with my field-glass for the giant mam- 

 mals and other animals, the solemn stillness broken 

 only now and then by the cries of birds or beasts. It 

 was a unique scene, grand and poetic, a picture of pre- 

 historic times : before me in gloomy majesty the glacier 

 world of the gigantic volcano, deep down in the val- 

 ley elephants and giraffes reaching into our time like 

 the ruins of a by-gone age. . . ! 



On the plains of the steppe I met, though very rarely, 

 the gray wild-cat (Felis afj. lyhica). In all I shot four 

 specimens and caught a few more in traps. It resem- 

 bles very much our own cat — is long-tailed and shy. 



I happened also to come across the East African 

 representative of the lynx family, the caracal {Caracal 

 jiitlncHs), several times. Once I was watching pygmy 

 antelopes (Madogua kirki) when I saw, not more than 

 sixty feet from me, a lynx looking out for the same 

 game. It is a rare chance to meet this animal in day- 

 time, for it comes out of the bush chiefly at night. I 

 did not mean to let my chance slip and shot it on the 

 spot. 



Another time, in March, I was still more fortunate. 



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