WITH FLASH-LIGHT AND RIFLE 



the Victoria Nyanza, I found the cover of such pits so 

 thickly grown over with moss that even the eye of the 

 natives could not distinguish them from the surround- 

 ing ground. These pits are in some parts of the steppe 

 so numerous that they are a danger to the explorer and 

 his caravan. In them are caught, indiscriminately, 

 males, females, and the young, while the hunter cares 

 chiefly for the males. I often advised the command- 

 ants of the stations of pits which I found in the neigh- 

 boring steppe, but it is hard to induce the natives to 

 give up this destructive, but safe, method of catching 

 the large elephant and rhinoceros. Lions and leopards 

 are rarely caught in pitfalls. 



The natives are also exceedingly skilled in the con- 

 struction and use of all kinds of traps. Various snares 

 and the "switch-up" are calculated to catch birds and 

 smaller mammals, including dassies and pygmy ante- 

 lopes. I have also seen natives driving small antelopes 

 and catching them in nets. 



The hunting by the African natives becomes destruc- 

 tive to the fauna of their country if it is done by other 

 means than the arrow, the spear, the pit, and the 

 trap, and for purposes other than for food and vest- 

 ment. 



I have always claimed not only that the natives 

 should not any longer be supplied with fire-arms, but 

 that they should be deprived of those which already 

 are in their hands. So far they have used them chiefly 



406 



