406 WILD ANIMALS. 



are by no means unfrequent, and huntsmen of considerable expe- 

 rience have been known to be outwitted and seriously injured by 

 these South African buffaloes. Sometimes the angry brute will 

 content himself with tossing its victim into the air, in which case 

 the mischief is generally limited to the dislocation or fracture 

 of a limb; but far more often it holds its antagonist down upon 

 the ground, whilst with its feet it tramples him to death. I heard 

 of an instance on the Limpopo, where a white man and three 

 negroes were killed, and a fourth negro much injured, all by a 

 single buffalo bull." 



Buffaloes do not charge with their heads lowered in the way 

 that artists generally depict, but on the contrary hold them 

 straight out, a position which keeps the horns well back over the 

 shoulders. Just before striking, however, the head is lowered so 

 that the horns can be utilized. 



Selous, after his experience in shooting nearly 200 buffaloes to 

 his own rifle, and following very many of them into thick bush, 

 gives it as his opinion that, although many accidents happen 

 in the pursuit of these animals, the danger incurred in hunting 

 them is marvellously exaggerated. " I know," he remarks, " of 

 several instances where buffaloes have charged suddenly, and 

 apparently in unprovoked ferocity, upon people who never even 

 saw them until they were dashed, in many cases mortally wounded, 

 to the ground; but I believe that, in at any rate the majority of 

 cases, if the whole truth could be made known, these buffaloes 

 would be found to have been previously wounded by some other 

 hunter, and finding themselves suddenly confronted by another 

 sportsman in the thicket or patch of long grass, to which they 

 have retired to brood over their injuries, at once rushed upon the 

 intruder, perhaps more from the instinct of self-defence than any- 

 thing else." 



This is conjecture, but even accepting it as the solution of the 

 matter, yet other animals do not develop the same tendency to 

 attack, and certainly the number of deaths with which the Cape 

 buffalo is credited inclines the majority of people to agree with 

 the sportsmen who have formed the conclusion that it is the most 

 dangerous beast. 



