43° MAIZE 



CHAP, the loins. Indeed, for either dog or man, coming to close 

 x - quarters with Adonis (as the chacma is ironically called by the 

 Boers) is no trifling matter." 



Mr. D. E. Hutchins, late Conservator of Forests, Cape 

 Town, notes l that some years ago a troop of baboons was 

 doing a good deal of damage in the Government timber planta- 

 tions at Tokai, near Cape Town, by scratching up the pine 

 seed as fast as it was sown. On a certain day a quantity of 

 pine seed, poisoned with strychnine, was left within their reach, 

 and the next morning seven baboons were found dead near a 

 mountain stream ; after this the band forsook the pine seed for 

 a time. Later they returned, but the seeds meantime had 

 developed into seedlings which were left unharmed by the 

 baboons. Mr. Hutchins concludes, however, that baboons 

 " are so intelligent that I am doubtful whether it would be 

 possible to destroy a whole troop with poison ; after one or 

 two deaths they would either forsake the locality or learn to 

 avoid the poison ". 



Mr. P. Thomsen 2 makes this suggestion for ridding a farm 

 of baboons : — 



Near the drinking or sleeping places of the baboons sow a 

 small patch of maize. Before the ears appear, begin scatter- 

 ing in the same neighbourhood a little maize grain at intervals 

 of a day or two. When the baboons come to inspect the grow- 

 ing maize they will find the grain on the ground and eat it. 

 After a time begin putting out a few ordinary sweets with the 

 maize grains, and when these have been found to disappear 

 make bonbons in the following manner : Boil some yellow 

 sugar, as for ordinary sweets, and drop it in lumps on a stone slab 

 to cool. When these have been eaten by the baboons, make 

 more in the same way but add to the sugar, while it is still 

 soft in the pan, some glass which has been well cleaned and 

 then pounded fine. Drop this mixture, as before, on a slab to 

 cool. Feed regularly for some time with these glass and sugar 

 sweets, and gradually the baboons will cease to come to the 

 field — the glass is sure to kill them. 



Another method recommended 3 is to put out near the 

 haunts of the baboons a number of little heaps of grain or 

 pumpkin seed, each with a detonator or dynamite cap in it. 



' T.A.y., Vol. Ill, r . 385. 3 T.A.J. , Vol. Ill, p. iSS. 



•' Mr. W. R. Life, of RuMenburg, Transvaal, in the U.A.J. 



