136 
DISEASES OF WILD ANIMALS. 
Chap. VII. 
found dead with masses of foam at the nostrils, exactly as occurs 
in the common horse-sickness.” The production of the malig¬ 
nant carbuncle called kuatsi, or selonda, by the flesh when eaten, 
is another proof of the disease of the tame and wild being identical. 
I once found a buffalo blind from ophthalmia standing by the 
fountain Otse; when he attempted to run he lifted up his feet in 
the manner peculiar to blind animals. The rhinoceros has often 
worms on the conjunction of his eyes; but these are not the cause 
of the dimness of vision which make him charge past a man 
who has wounded him, if he stands perfectly still, in the behef that 
his enemy is a tree. It probably arises from the horn being in 
the hne of vision, for the variety named kuababba, which has a 
straight horn directed downwards away from that line, possesses 
acute eyesight, and is much more wary. 
AU the wild animals are subject to intestinal worms besides. I 
have observed bunches of a tape-hke thread and short worms of 
enlarged sizes in the rliinoceros. The zebras and elephants are 
seldom without them, and a thread-worm may often be seen under 
the peritonemn of these animals. Short red larvae, wliich convey 
a stingmg sensation to the hand, are seen clustering round the 
orifice of the windpipe (trachea) of this animal at the back of the 
tlmoat; others are seen in the frontal sinus of antelopes; and 
cmdous flat leech-hke worms with black eyes are found in the 
stomaclis of leches. The zebra, giraffe, eland, and kukama, have 
been seen mere skeletons from decay of their teeth as well as from 
disease. 
The carnivora, too, become diseased and mangy; hons get 
lean and perish miserably by reason of the decay of the teeth. 
When a hon grows too old to catch game, he frequently takes 
to killing goats in the villages; a woman or child happening to go 
out at night falls a prey too; and as tliis is his only source of sub¬ 
sistence now, he continues it. From this circumstance has arisen 
the idea that the hon, when he has once tasted human flesh, loves 
it better than any other. A man-eater is invariably an old hon; 
and when he overcomes his fear of man so flir as to come to villages 
for goats, the people remark, “ His teeth are worn, he will soon kill 
men.” They at once aclmowledge the necessity of instant action, 
and tmm out to kill liim. When hving far away from population, 
or when, as is the case in some parts, he entertains a wholesome 
