tamest of the game, with the big gazelle 
and the zebra next; but no two herds will 
behave alike; and I have seen a wildebeest 
bull look at me motionless within a hundred 
and fifty yards, while the zebras, tommies, 
and big gazelles which were his companions 
fled in panic; and I left him still standing, 
as I walked after the gazelles, to kill a buck 
for the table. The game is usually sensi¬ 
tive to getting the hunter’s wind; but on 
these plains I have again and again seen 
game stand looking at us within fairly close 
range to leeward, and yet on the same day 
seen the same kind of game flee in mad 
fright when twice the distance to windward. 
Sometimes there are inexplicable variations 
between the conduct of beasts in one local¬ 
ity and in another. In East Africa the 
hyenas seem only occasionally to crunch 
the long bones of the biggest dead animals; 
whereas Cuninghame, who pointed out this 
fact to me, stated that in South Africa the 
hyenas, of the same kind, always crunched 
up the big bones, eating but the marrow and 
fragments of the bone itself. 
Now and then the game will choose a 
tree as a rubbing post, and if it is small will 
entirely destroy the tree; and I have seen 
them use for the same purpose an oddly 
shaped stone, one comer of which they had 
worn quite smooth. They have stamping 
grounds, small patches of bare earth from 
which they have removed even the roots of 
the grass and bushes by the trampling of 
their hoofs, leaving nothing but a pool of 
dust. One evening I watched some zebras 
stringing slowly along in a line which 
brought them past a couple of these stamp¬ 
ing grounds. As they came in succession 
to each bare place half the herd, one after 
another, lay down and rolled to and fro, 
sending up spurts of dust so thick that the 
animal was hidden from sight; while per¬ 
haps a companion, which did not roll, stood 
near by seemingly to enjoy the dust. 
On this same evening we rode campward 
facing a wonderful sunset. The evening 
was lowering and overcast. The darken¬ 
ing plains stretched dim and vague into the 
far distance. The sun went down under a 
frowning sky, behind shining sheets of rain; 
and it turned their radiance to an angry 
splendor of gold and murky crimson. 
At this camp the pretty little Living- 
399 
