302 ON SAFARI 



I began by saying that tlieir apparent abundance 

 was in the nature of a menace to big game. So it is ; 

 for they cannot exist in face of excessive shooting. All 

 experience the world over clinches that fact. Compare 

 the physical conditions of large game with small. The 

 latter, with their large broods and early maturity, 

 increase by three- or four-fold each year ; and of that 

 increase the greater proportion is available for human 

 use. Large animals, on the contrary, with their single 

 young, or perhaps two at a birth, and their years of 

 immaturity, increase but slowly ; while of that increase 

 at least two-thirds (in Africa) is needed for the support 

 of lions, leopards and other carnivora. The proportion 

 remaining for the use (or sport) of man is necessarily 

 small. It certainly cannot exceed five per cent, and I 

 would not myself estimate it at more than three per cent, 

 per annum on the entire stock. A recognition of these 

 facts by hunters and settlers would go far towards 

 perpetuating the big game of British East Africa. If 

 regarded merely as targets for rifle-practice, the game 

 will go, and that soon. 



The future of the game depends largely on the 

 settlers. Now most Britishers possess (more, at least, 

 than any other race) imbued in their hearts the true 

 spirit of a sportsman. Latent it may be, but true none 

 the less, and I venture to ask them to accept from me 

 this definition of a sportsman : — " One who loves game 

 as thouorh he were the father of it." 



