The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal Observations

Judging from what hunters in Africa have told me, the hunting of most kinds of African antelopes is rather easy and quiet long- range rifle work. In comparison with any sheep, goat, ibex, markhor and even deer hunting, it must be rather mild sport. A level grassy plain with more or less bushes and small trees for use in stalking is a tame scenario beside mountains and heavy forests, and it seems to me that this sameness and tameness of habitat naturally fails to stimulate the mental development of the wild habitants. In captivity, excepting the keen kongoni, or Coke hartebeest, and a few others, the old-world antelopes are mentally rather dull animals. They seem to have few thoughts, and seldom use what they have; but when attacked or wounded the roan antelope is hard to finish. In captivity their chief exercise consists in rubbing and wearing down their horns on the iron bars of their indoor cages, but I must give one of our brindled gnus extra credit for the enterprise and thoroughness that he displayed in wrecking a powerfully-built water-trough, composed of concrete and porcelain. The job was as well done as if it had been the work of a big-horn ram showing off. But that was the only exhibition of its kind by an African antelope. The Alleged "Charge" of the Rhinoceros. For half a century African hunters wrote of the assaults of African rhinoceroses on caravans and hunting parties; and those accounts actually established for that animal a reputation for pugnacity. Of late years, however, the evil intentions of the rhinoceros have been questioned by several hunters. Finally Col. Theodore Roosevelt firmly declared his belief that the usual supposed "charge" of the rhinoceros is nothing more nor less than a movement to draw nearer to the strange man-object, on account of naturally poor vision, to see what men look like. In fact, I think that most American sportsmen who have hunted in Africa now share that view, and credit the rhino with very rarely running at a hunter or a party in order to do damage.