68 THE SOCIETY FOR THE PRESERVATION OF 



The tribes live in movable encampments, their small brown cir- 

 cular huts being made of camel mats. 



* The Somali hunts on horseback and kills numbers of oryx and 

 ostriches by riding them down. The bull oryx is prized for his 

 thick hide, shields being made out of the shoulder-piece. Every 

 Somali buys a dozen or so of these shields during his lifetime. 

 Thus the execution must be great. When rain has fallen in the 

 " Haud," oryx become hogged and may be easily caught on foot. 

 When lions have killed men of note, the young men turn out on 

 horseback and gallop round and round them. As the lion swiftly 

 turns around in a cloud of dust, he becomes dazed and is plied 

 with poisoned arrows. Hyaenas, which are a greater scourge to 

 the flocks by far than lions, are killed by pit-falls furnished with 

 a short spear-blade. In the west rhinoceroses are killed for the 

 sake of the hide, which cuts up into seven good shields, leaving 

 besides some strips for making whips. 



* Midgans, a servile aboriginal and hunting tribe, use bows 

 and poisoned arrows, wearing game down by following them night 

 and day, using a camel as a stalking horse; or they make long 

 lines of thorn fence across the jungle, setting springes in cleverly 

 contrived openings. Gerenook (Waller's gazelle) are caught in 

 this manner, the skin being in great demand to convert into soft 

 prayer-carpets. Midgans catch young ostriches and domesticate 

 them. 



' But none of these causes do more than place temporary checks 

 on the increase of game. The proof is that the game has survived 

 them all during hundreds of years. 



* I attribute the diminution of game entirely to the importa- 

 tion of modern rifles, and so far, leaving aside the Abyssinians 

 who, since the rectification of the western boundary in their favour, 

 have with their paid Midgan gunmen overrun the western plains, 

 practically wiping out in a few years the great numbers of harte- 

 beeste and oryx which formerly swarmed there, and have cut off 

 the supply of elephants at its source in the highlands of Harrar; 

 omitting also the tribes who have only recently been armed, and 

 who, although they must undoubtedly be reckoned on as a factor 

 in the future, have so far done comparatively little harm, — leaving 

 aside the above, I attribute the diminution of game almost, if not 

 entirely, to European sportsmen and to the movements of troops. 

 These have prevented game from recuperating after rinderpest and 

 disease, as it formerly used to. No doubt the Ogaden, who have 

 recently purchased many rifles from Abyssinian soldiers, are 

 rapidly destroying the wild animals, but these people do not live 

 within the British Protectorate. 



* The slaughter in the Protectorate has been great during the 

 presence in the country of the various expeditionary forces, when 

 it was impossible, in spite of every effort, to obtain general recogni- 

 tion of the Game Laws. Not only did a large proportion of the 



