o 



XV AN UNCAGED 7X)() 191 



L'.ouutry-sulo. glistening witli eleplumt l)ones. Ilis gnidc 

 assured liiui that it was " the place where elephants 

 come to die." Tliis particulai' place was well known to 

 the Turkaua, who regularly visited it to carry olf the 

 tusks. 



There are several modes in which mammalian 

 remains ma}- accumulate under alluvial deposits. 

 Gregory, iu describing the geology of the Rift Valley, 

 found around water-holes acres of ground white with 

 bones of the rhinoceros, zebra, gazelle and antelope, 

 jackal, and hyasna, and among them the remains of a 

 lion. .Vll the bones of the skeletons were there fresh 

 and unguawed. The year liefore, a drought had cleared 

 l)oth game and people from the district. Those animals 

 which di<I not mio-rate crowded around the dwindlino- 

 pools and fought for the last drop of water. " These 

 accunrulations were therefore due to drought and not to 

 deluge." 



The manner in which animals accumulate in these 

 grassy valleys is remarkable. Sometimes the gazelles 

 are so numerous and so crowded that a valley appears 

 of a sandy yellow. 



Sudden catastro^jhes account for the wholesale de- 

 struction of animals, and a good example of this must 

 be familiar to all who have visited the excellent Natural 

 Hi.story Museum at Brussels, and seen the extra- 

 ordinary collection of huge skeletons of the Iguanodons, 

 which were found in a fault in the colliery of Bernissart, 

 one thousand feet below the present sea-level. 



In the last decade of the nineteenth century, East 

 and South Africa were visited with rinderpest which 

 destroyed Ijuft'alo and cattle; kudus, gnus, and giraffes 

 also suffered badly. This is interesting as showing that 

 disease aids in exterminating mammals, l:)ut does not 

 destroy a whole fauna of a country. It limits itself to 

 certain species. 



Many of the Ethiopian game animals are of large 

 size, and those who have only seen them when stuffed 



