every hand. Some of the game showed 
tameness, some wildness, the difference be¬ 
ing not between species and species, but 
between given individuals of almost every 
species. While we were absent two rhinos 
passed close by camp, and stopped to stare 
curiously at it; we saw them later as they 
trotted away, but their horns were not good 
enough to tempt us. 
At a distance the sunlight plays pranks 
with the coloring of the animals. Cock os¬ 
triches always show jet black, and are vis¬ 
ible at a greater distance than any of the 
common game; the neutral tint of the hens 
making them far less conspicuous. Both 
cocks and hens are very wary, sharp-sighted, 
and hard to approach. Next to the cock 
ostrich in conspicuousness comes the wilde¬ 
beest, because it shows black in most lights; 
yet when headed away from the onlooker, 
the sun will often make the backs of a 
herd look whitish in the distance. Wilde¬ 
beest are warier than most other game. 
Round this camp the topi were as tame as 
the hartebeest; they look very dark in 
most lights, only less dark than the wilde¬ 
beest, and so are also conspicuous. The 
398 
hartebeest change from a deep brown to a 
light foxy red, according to the way they 
stand toward the sun; and when a herd 
was feeding away from us, their white stems 
showed when a very long way off. The 
zebra’s stripes cease to be visible after he is 
three hundred yards off, but in many lights 
he glistens white in the far distance, and is 
then very conspicuous; on this day I came 
across a mixed herd of zebra and eland in 
thin bush, and when still a long way off the 
zebras caught the eye, while their larger 
companions were as yet hardly to be made 
out without field-glasses. The gazelles usu¬ 
ally show as sandy colored, and are there¬ 
fore rather less conspicuous than the others 
when still; but they are constantly in mo¬ 
tion, and in some fights show up as almost 
white. When they are far off the sun rays 
may make any of these animals look very 
dark or very fight. In fact all of them are 
conspicuous at long distances, and none of 
them make any effort to escape observation 
as do certain kinds that haunt dense bush 
and forest. But constant allowance must 
be made for the wide variations among 
individuals. Ordinarily tommies are the 
