GAME AND DISEASE 
803 
thermometer ; nor can one take a blood smear, unless one 
kills the animal to do so. 
Under these circumstances there are certain rules of nature 
that must be taken into consideration, and the first and most 
important point, to which I wish to draw attention, is the way 
nature takes her own steps to prevent the spread of disease, 
yet at the same time using disease as one of her methods of 
providing that none but the ‘ fit * shall increase in numbers 
and stock the land. Nature is a cruel mistress and has no 
use for weaklings, nor has she safeguards for them. 
In a true state of nature the meat-eating animals are all 
the time at work taking their toll from the herds of game, and 
killing the sick or weak animal which gives them the easiest 
chance. It is often put forward as an argument against game 
reserves, that, if game is protected, it will increase until it 
is so numerous that disease will break out. This is true if 
one is strictly preserving — as one preserves pheasants at home, 
and where all the meat-eaters are killed off ; but in a reserve, 
where nature is allowed full sw r ay, there is little danger, for a 
sick animal is not allowed to live many hours. A point which 
I wish to make very clear is this : ‘ So long as the balance of 
nature is kept, there is little or no disease.’ Should an animal 
be a weakling, nature sees that it does not live long : it may 
die of some sickness, or in all probability it is killed by the 
‘ meat-eaters,’ but it will not propagate the species and so 
carry on a weak strain. 
An odd sick animal is one of the rarest sights, except when 
a new disease arises, against which there is no immunity, or 
when the animals are poor, and therefore more liable to a 
disease like anthrax, which is largely disseminated by dust. 
I can say that in twenty odd years amongst the game in 
South Africa and British East Africa, I have not seen more 
than a few sick animals : either those that had been wounded 
or when an epidemic of some disease was at work. It must 
be understood that disease is seldom heard of, unless the 
animals die in such large numbers that the hyaenas and other 
scavengers are unable to dispose of them quickly, or in a 
district which is closely under observation — as Nairobi was 
during the recent outbreak of anthrax. Here the ten or 
