ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 71 
prey, even vultures, and bee-eaters, rollers, Occasionally widely ditferent as- 
swallows, and swifts busily snap up, amidst 
clouds of smoke, the escaping insects, some 
of which are carried high by the currents of 
heated air. Right after the fires have passed, 
white-necked storks and marabous may be seen 
searching the blackened ground for the large 
grasshoppers, reptiles, and lesser animals that 
have been injured or killed. 
During the conflagration game stands without 
fear in close proximity to fire, and in certain 
places may even walk across the fire line. With 
unexpected rapidity the tender grass com- 
mences to spring up and the bright green 
blankets attract the game, most of which again 
form herds, larger than at any other time. 
As soon as the smoke-laden atmosphere clears 
and the burned particles carried by the wind 
cease to fall, trees and bushes show some green 
again. In a few weeks springtime seems to 
have arrived. Gorgeous blooms often grace the 
bushes and trees, and a delightful fragrance 
may fill the air. Scattered flowers appear, but 
fields washed in a single bright tone are un- 
known. Orchids emerging from the parched 
soil, or even from the ashes, with their delicate 
form and color, mostly white, violet, yellow and 
rose, are an agreeable surprise. 
The season from January to June 
Beat is the ideal hunting period, but 
Time for : 
Hunting success depends upon a thorough 
knowledge of the country. In 
the northeastern Uele district, game at all times 
is scarce as compared with its abundance in 
British East Africa. Some sections then are 
alive with natives, for with them it is the most 
propitious time for laying in their annual sup- 
plies of meat. They often make use of grass 
fires to drive their prey to certain places where 
companions with nets, spears, and arrows are 
ready to slaughter all they can. 
Sometimes whole fields are covered with the 
heavier charred stalks that have been left stand- 
ing by the flames. These obstruct the view and 
make hunting difficult. Many of the swamps 
are dry, and the river-beds nearly empty, fore- 
ing game to travel great distances in search of 
water. During the rainy season much of the 
savannah proper is traversed by sluggish rivers 
winding their way between low banks, as in 
newly dug channels. It seems strange that even 
then in spite of the proximity of water there 
is not the slightest trace of greater luxuriance 
in those sections, the typical scrubby vegetation 
leading down to the water’s edge without change. 
Neighbors 
of the White 
Rhinoceros 
pects are offered in other parts 
of this region, where wooded 
strips mark from afar the sites 
of swamps, or meandering watercourses. 
These forest galleries show many of the 
features characteristic of the equatorial 
Rain Forest, and strange contrasts — are 
naturally unavoidable. Indeed, here one may 
listen to the calls of the chimpanzee as they 
mingle with the roaring of the lion, the howl 
of the hyena, and the yelping of the jackal. 
The and the leopard, the civet and 
prairie cat all find their living here. The sylvan 
red colobus, and the black-and-white guereza, 
so typical of these forested galleries, both 
jump noisily from tree to tree. The forest- 
loving red river-hog, and the wart-hog of the 
plains may wallow in the very swamps that 
serval 
elephants and square-lipped rhinoceroses have 
used a few days before, and the cane-rat (Thry- 
onomys) cuts its runways through the high 
The same termite hills may here be 
visited by the scaly ant-eater (Manis) and the 
aardvark (Orycteropus), and without taking a 
step one may observe both the large forest 
squirrels (Protoxerus) and the fossorial ground 
squirrel (Huverus) of the savannah. 
grass. 
To paint a vivid picture of the 
northern white rhinoceroses in 
their leisure, frolics and unrest 
is no easy task, for the obscurity of night en- 
Daily 
Habits 
One can no 
more hope to succeed in wresting life’s secrets 
from two-horned 
shrouds their most active phases. 
monsters 
short span of the blazing 
these during the 
sun than to 
serve native customs during the long hours of 
the moon. 
ob- 
In the heat of the day, rhinoceroses 
merely rest, wherever they may be, in open or 
dense thickets, in shade or scorching sun. In 
the early morning they may continue to wallow, 
or like nomads take delight in roving, or they 
may be seen while standing still to doze oft 
the effects of late hours. When violently dis- 
turbed in their light slumbers they, like most 
other gigantic creatures, rush either to safety 
or attack. Most of their assailants unfor- 
tunately have greater interest in them when 
dead than alive, and refer to them either as 
cowards or heroes. These are the regions 
wherein distance counts for naught, and the 
eyes have to scan each minute sign in trails 
and tracks. From them alone one reads the 
facts supplied so seldom by face to face en- 
counters. 
