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ch. xiv] GAME PRESERVATION 
through the nostrils. The long grass was traversed in 
all directions by elephant trails, and there was much 
fresh sign of the huge beasts—their dung, and the 
wrecked trees on which they had been feeding ; and 
there was sign of buffalo also. In Middle Africa, thanks 
to wise legislation, and to the very limited size of the 
areas open to true settlement, there has been no such 
reckless, wholesale slaughter of big game as that which 
has brought the once wonderful big game fauna of 
South Africa to the verge of extinction. In certain 
small areas of Middle Africa, of course, it has gone ; 
but as a whole it has not much diminished, some species 
have actually increased, and none is in danger of im¬ 
mediate extinction, unless it be the white rhinoceros. 
During the last decade, for instance, the buffalo have 
been recovering their lost ground throughout the Lado, 
Uganda, and British East Africa, having multiplied 
many times over. During the same period, in the 
same region, the elephant have not greatly diminished 
in aggregate numbers, although the number of bulls 
carrying big ivory has been very much reduced; indeed, 
the reproductive capacity of the herds has probably been 
very little impaired, the energies of the hunters having 
been almost exclusively directed to the killing of the 
bulls with tusks weighing over thirty pounds apiece ; 
and the really big tuskers, which are most eagerly 
sought after, are almost always past their prime, and 
no longer associate with the herd. 
But this does not apply to the great beast which was 
the object of our coming to the Lado, the square¬ 
mouthed, or, as it is sometimes miscalled, the white, 
rhinoceros. Africa is a huge continent, and many 
species of the big mammals inhabiting it are spread 
over a vast surface ; and some of them offer strange 
