1 2 2 PL A G UE-STR UCK ANIMALS 



mortality among their own species. Yet with every 

 chance in their favour they succumb to pestilence in a 

 manner quite unaccountable. The statistics of the 

 rinderpest epidemic in South Africa will probably never 

 be forthcoming. Its general results, so far as Matabele- 

 land is concerned, are well known. They indicate the 

 total destruction, so far as transport and food are 

 concerned, of the domestic cattle of the country. With 

 them, over large areas, the antelopes and other ruminants 

 have perished. The reason of this great mortality has 

 never been explained, though the main source of infec- 

 tion at least, in countries where cattle or game run 

 wild, is obvious. It is at the drinking-places that all 

 animals, infected or sound, necessarily meet, however 

 much the former may desire to wander away in solitude. 

 This was proved in part during the cattle-plague in this 

 country, where certain farms in which the herds were 

 watered from protected wells, and never allowed to 

 drink from the streams, continued free from the disease. 

 As a set-off to the rapid mortality of animals in 

 plagues, the rate of their subsequent recovery in 

 numbers must be taken into account. The subject 

 now most anxiously debated in South Africa is the 

 time which must elapse before the herds of cattle are 

 replenished. The time will probably be less than the 

 most sanguine could anticipate. Destructive as they 

 are at the time, plagues leave no such far-reaching 



