Oct- 16. 1909] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
633 
I ■ 
GAME NEAR KIMBERLEY. 
This is a late season. The drouth in the early 
summer was not favorable. Now, with the fre¬ 
quent nice rains that have fallen throughout this 
district since the beginning of the year, and 
with the absence of locusts, the amount of cover 
for game is extraordinary. Almost everywhere, 
especially in the sand veld, the grass is up to 
four feet in height, and riding in the early 
morning one gets wet through with the grass 
up to one’s knees. The chances of making a 
bag will depend upon having good, well-trained 
dogs. On the whole, game appears to have in¬ 
creased fairly well, redwing partridges being 
this season the latest of all birds in pairing, 
and many of them have still quite young chicks. 
Sportsmen will endeavor to avoid shooting the 
old birds in such cases. Guinea fowl left the 
river banks early in the summer. After the first 
rain they like to get away into the high veld, 
where they have more scope to contend with 
wild cats and other natural enemies. They have 
had every opportunity of rearing their young, 
which are now collecting in troops of from 50 
to 100. Koorhan have done well. Any number 
of young toward evening may be seen making 
sport with the old birds for protection. 
Pheasants have had an unhappy summer. 
These birds, unlike the guinea fowl, keep the 
river all the year round, where wild cats make 
havoc among them, as they roost within easy 
reach in the bush, generally nesting in long 
rushes on the banks or in the thick bush. 
Evidently the game on the whole would be 
better for a killing-off of some of the smaller 
carnivora. Steinbuck have bred well, although 
there are youngsters only half-grown. Duiker 
jappear to be gradually filling up their old habi¬ 
tations, which is a good sign. They are at 
present almost as tame as sheep; often when 
among cattle they allow you to come within a 
few yards of them, feeding gracefully on choice 
bits of grass; but wait until he sees the flash 
of the gun, and all his old cunning is instantly 
awakened, and his gracefulness will be seen in 
his clean run at a hundred yards. Springbuck- 
have increased marvelously, it being no excep¬ 
tion to see in a herd of several hundred nearly 
half their number with little ones. In the early 
summer these buck did a great service in the 
.sand veld, where the grass had been burnt dur¬ 
ing the winter, by scraping out an enormous 
iquantity of slangkop, the bulb of which affords 
a good water, though a deadly poison should 
any animal eat the flower or leaf until killed 
off by the first frost. Hares are in clover just 
now, there being so much grass as to make it 
difficult to see if many are about. They breed 
almost throughout the year, but probably few 
of the young of each litter survive. I have 
seldom opened the crop of a secretary bird 
without finding a portion of a leveret.' Of all 
wild babies,_ the leveret is, I think, the most 
lovable. It is a great temptation to pick it up— 
not a very easy thing to do—but it is of little 
use attempting to rear it as a pet, unless you 
chance upon one a fortnight or three weeks 
old. Natives and their dogs are, of course, their 
worst enemies, both in and out of season. 
Paauw have been in considerable numbers 
throughout the district, but they are now, as 
usual, returning to Bechuanaland and the 
Kalahari. Dikkop are scarce, and quail have 
oeen conspicuous by their absence. Namaqua 
uartridges will probably be a nonentity during 
his winter; the rains have been usually bounti- 
ul in their own part of the country, and only 
1 few sand grouse remained to breed in this 
ueighborhood. A remarkable feature of the 
Vaal_ River during the past few years is the 
continued absence of wild duck and teal, which, 
luring former years abounded in thousands not 
unly in the river, but in all the outside vleis. 
Now to see half a dozen duck fighting up or 
iown the river is an unusual sight, but this 
veek we have seen a few in some vleis. Those 
vho are in earnest about preserving their game 
nust keep down hunting dogs and vermin. So 
ong as there is no adequate machinery for the 
efficient enforcement of dog tax, game licenses, 
ind so forth, so long will the law be largely 
waded. Owners of really extensive shootings 
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