XV 
AN UNCAGED 200 
191 
country-side glistening with elephant bones. His guide 
assured him that it was “ the place where elephants 
come to die.’’ This particular place was well known to 
the Turkana, wdio regularly visited it to carry off the 
tusks. 
There are several modes in wdiich mammalian 
remains may accumulate under alluvial deposits. 
Gregory, in describing the geology of the Rift Valley, 
found around water-holes acres of ground vrhite with 
bones of the rhinoceros, zebra, gazelle and antelope, 
jackal, and hysena, and among them the remains of a 
lion. All the bones of the skeletons were there fresh 
and ungnawed. The year before, a drought had cleared 
both game and people from the district. Those animals 
which did not migrate crowded around the dwindling 
pools and fought for the last drop of water. “ These 
accumulations were therefore due to drought and not to 
delui^e.” 
O 
The manner in which animals accumulate in these 
grassy valleys is remarkable. Sometimes the gazelles 
are so numerous and so crowded that a valley appears 
of a sandy yellow. 
Sudden catastrophes account for the wdiolesale de¬ 
struction of animals, and a good example of this must 
he familiar to all who have visited the excellent Natural 
History Museum at Brussels, and seen the extra¬ 
ordinary collection of huge skeletons of the Iguanodons, 
which were found in a fault in the colliery of Bernissart, 
one thousand feet below the present sea-level. 
In the last decade of the nineteenth century. East 
and South Africa were visited wdth rinderpest which 
destroyed buffalo and cattle; kudus, gnus, and giraffes 
also suffered badly. This is interesting as showing that 
disease aids in exterminating mammals, but does not 
destroy a whole fauna of a country. It limits itself to 
certain species. 
Many of the Ethiopian game animals are of large 
size, and those who have only seen them when stuffed 
