Frederick Courteney Selous

“ Selous' notes on the Cape buffalo and tsetse fly are extremely interesting. But indeed this is true of all that he has written, both of the great game beasts themselves and of his adventures in hunting them. His book is a genuine contribution alike to hunting lore and to natural history. It should be welcomed by every lover of the chase and by every man who cares for the wild, free life of the wilderness. It should be no less welcome to all who are interested in the life-histories of the most formidable and interesting of the beasts that dwell in our world to-day. ”

“ The sun was low in the western sky, and, seen through the haze of many grass fires, had already turned from blazing yellow to a dull red, when the spoor of the wounded elephant led us suddenly out of the forest into the open grassy valley, some three or four hundred yards broad, through which the little stream of the Dett made its sluggish way, forming many fine pools of water along its course. ”

“ As I tramped along mile after mile in the deep sand and beneath the blazing sun, I could not but think regretfully of my elephant-hunting days of over twenty years before, when I used to do the same sort of work day after day and month after month without feeling it, and got up every morning without an ache or pain, fresh and ready for the next day's work. But one cannot last for ever ”

“ To those who believe that every spot or stripe or patch of colour on every animal is a beautiful illustration of the truth of the theory of protective coloration, this may seem a very fanciful idea. Yet I feel convinced that the influence of environment has played a greater part than is generally believed in the evolution of colour in living organisms. The weak point in the theory of protective coloration when applied to large mammals is the fact that all carnivorous animals are nocturnal and seek their prey habitually by night and by scent, and only occasionally by daylight and by sight. ”

“ The chase of the giraffe on horseback lacks, of course, the fierce joy and the soul-stirring excitement which accompanied elephant- and lion-hunting, with the rude muzzle-loading guns used by professional African hunters some forty years ago; for the giraffe is a most harmless and inoffensive animal, in no way dangerous to human life. ”

“ I have shot giraffe cows whose sides when the hide was peeled off them were covered with a thick layer of white fat, from half an inch to over two inches in thickness from shoulder to rump. There is no finer meat to be got in the whole world than that of a fat giraffe cow, and the soft white fat when rendered out is equal to the best lard. The tongue and marrow-bones are also great delicacies, and the hide is valuable for waggon whips, sjamboks, and the soles of boots. No wonder the South African frontiers-men, whether Boers or Britons, were always keen giraffe hunters. ”

“ The sight of the gemsbuck is very keen, and the Bushmen say that, like the ostrich, he trusts more to this sense for his safety than to scent, which is no doubt the case as long as he is in country of an open character. There is no more splendid sight than that of a herd of gemsbucks galloping over the arid wastes of their desert home; for, owing to the fact that the cows have longer horns than the bulls, every individual member of the herd looks as if it carried a head worth winning. ”

“ But at whatever distance they happened to be on the open plain between myself and the horizon, their forms showed up quite as distinctly as those of a herd of cattle or horses. Never in my life have I seen the sun shining on zebras in such a way as to cause them to become invisible or even in any way inconspicuous on an open plain, and I have seen thousands upon thousands of Burchell's zebras. Should these animals be approached when standing amongst trees with the leaf on, they are not at all easy to see, and the whisking of their tails will probably be the first thing to catch one's eye ”

“ Selous is much more than a mere big-game hunter, however; he is by instinct a keen field naturalist, an observer with a power of seeing, and of remembering what he has seen; and finally he is a writer who possesses to a very marked and unusual degree the power vividly and accurately to put on paper his observations. Such a combination of qualities is rare indeed, and the lack of any one of them effectually prevents any man from doing work as valuable as Mr. Selous has done. No ordinary naturalist fills the place at all. Big game exists only in the remote wilderness. ”

“ As a rule, they confine themselves to the arid, scrub-covered plains, but sometimes wander into the forests. If the sun is not shining full upon them—when they look almost white—the pale grey colour of their coats harmonises wonderfully well with all their surroundings, for the soil on which they stand is generally much the colour of their hides, whilst the parched and thorny scrub around them is always of a pale neutral tint, for it is usually leafless, and even when in leaf the leaves are rather grey than green. ”

“ When walking, wild lions hold the head rather low, lower than the line of the back, and although, when suddenly encountered, they will raise it for a moment to take a look at the intruder, they will soon lower it again and either trot away with a low growl or else stand watching. A wild lion looks his best and his worst, intensely savage but not at all majestic, when standing at bay. I have the pictures of four male lions, that I had chased on horseback and brought to bay, very vividly impressed on my memory. ”

“ But when white men suddenly invade a well-stocked game-country and disturb its peace by continual shooting, lions gradually grow more and more silent, till it becomes rare to hear one roar at all, though there may still be a good many of them about. The African lion is essentially a wilderness hunter and a game-killer, but when man, whether savage or civilised, encroaches upon his preserves, killing or driving off the game, and bringing in cattle, sheep, and goats in their place, then he preys upon these newly introduced animals and wars with their guardians to the death. ”

“ Could the opening up of Africa by the destructive civilised races have been delayed for a few hundred or a few thousand years, the blesbok would no doubt have lost the white blaze down the face as completely as it has lost the white disc over the tail, which is so conspicuous a feature in the coloration of its immediate ancestor, the bontebok. ”

“ Once, however, a buffalo is actually charging, no bullet will turn or stop it, unless its brain is pierced or its neck or one of its legs broken. A charging buffalo comes on grunting loudly, with outstretched nose and horns laid back on its neck, and does not lower its head to strike until close up to its enemy. The outstretched nose of the buffalo which killed my horse was within a few inches of my leg before it dipped its head, and, with a sweeping blow, inflicted a fearful wound in the poor animal's flank. ”

“ Lions, I think, must often lose their prey through the very sharpness of their claws, which cut like knives through the skin and flesh of a heavy animal in motion. I have known several instances of a lion overtaking a horse that had only had a short start. In such a case a lion will not land with a flying leap right on to a horse's back. It gallops close along the ground until it is almost under the horse's tail, and then, rearing itself up on its hind-legs, seizes it on either flank, endeavouring to hold it with the protruded claws of its great fore-paws. ”

“ One took lots of chances in giraffe-hunting, and got many a heavy fall when galloping ventre à terre across open ground full of ant-bear holes, or deep sun-cracks hidden from view by thick tussocky grass, and when one saw the branches of two neighbouring wait-a-bit thorn bushes, each covered with hundreds of little hard black hooks, suddenly close together with a swish behind the disappearing stern of a giraffe, it needed considerable resolution to follow in its wake. ”

“ Soon the scorching sun once more went down, but as the moon was near the full, we had no difficulty in keeping a good line through the open thorn scrub, and got on at a good quick walk, as our thirsty cattle stepped out briskly, and weary though they must have been, showed no signs now of flagging. About midnight we called a halt, and off-saddling the horses—about six of Khama's headmen were mounted—lit fires, round about which the oxen were collected in two herds, the one composed of those belonging to the Mangwatos, from which I kept ours a little separate. ”

“ If an animal is behind a rock or a thick bush, he of course cannot see it, but his eyes are so well trained, he knows so exactly the appearance of every animal to be met with in the country in which he and his ancestors have spent their lives as hunters for countless ages, that he will not miss seeing any living thing that comes within his range of vision no matter what its surroundings may be. ”

“ I submit that the beautiful case in the Central Hall of the Natural History Museum at South Kensington—showing an Arctic fox, in its white winter coat, approaching a Polar hare, also in winter dress, and an ermine (stoat) hunting for ptarmigan (evidently by sight) —gives an entirely false view of the struggle for life as carried on by animals inhabiting the Arctic Regions, for it conveys the idea of the carnivorous animals of those snow-covered wastes hunting for their prey in a bright light and by eyesight alone. ”

“ To my eyes, and in the bright sunlight of Africa, the juxtaposition of black and white markings, so often seen on the faces of African antelopes, has never seemed to produce an indistinct blur of colour except at a considerable distance. At any distance up to 300 yards the black and white face-markings of the gemsbuck, the roan, and the sable antelope always appeared to me to be distinctly visible, and they have often been the first parts of these animals to catch my eye.
It is all very well to say that a male sable antelope, in spite of its bold colouring, is often very difficult to see. ”

“ If an elephant, buffalo, lion, or rhinoceros should be attacked and grievously injured by a human being, and is brave and stubborn enough to resent such treatment and make a fight for its life, it seems like adding insult to injury to speak of it as vindictive. ”

“ In appearance a full-maned, well-proportioned lion lying in peaceful repose in a European menagerie, gazing placidly and thoughtfully out of sleepy, brownish yellow eyes at the human crowd beyond the bars of its cage, is a truly dignified and majestic-looking animal ”

“ I cannot help thinking that the idea that giraffes can go for months together without drinking, in countries where there is but a small percentage of fluid in the food they eat, and in which the heat and dryness of the atmosphere are so intense that one's nails become as brittle as glass and the hairs of one's beard are constantly splitting, must be a mistaken one. It is, however, only right to say that many very experienced African hunters hold the view that giraffes are quite independent of water, and that they can and do exist for months at a time without drinking. ”

“ All African antelopes probably live in deadly fear of wild dogs, for on the occasion when, with two companions, I saw a single wild dog overtake a sable antelope bull, the latter halted and looked round when its pursuer was about fifty yards behind it, and then, instead of showing fight, as I should have expected it to do, threw out its limbs convulsively and ran at its utmost speed ”

“ Then not only were many species of richly coloured graceful antelopes and zebras everywhere to be seen, but in the early mornings and evenings great herds of rugged horned buffaloes on their way to or from their drinking-places almost rivalled the lesser game in numbers, whilst, scattered amongst all these denizens of the modern world, the numerous long-horned, heavy-headed white rhinoceroses, together with their more alert and active-looking cousins of the prehensile-lipped species, must have appeared like survivals from a far-distant epoch of the world's history. ”

“ The observation of the great beasts of the marsh and the mountain, the desert and the forest, must be made by those hardy adventurers who, unless explorers by profession, are almost certainly men to whom the chase itself is a dominant attraction. But the great majority of these hunters have no power whatever of seeing accurately. There is no fonder delusion than the belief that the average old hunter knows all about the animals of the wilderness. ”

“ Both breeds roam abroad by night, ever crafty, fierce, and hungry, and both will be equally ready to tear open the graves and devour the flesh of human beings, should the opportunity present itself, whether on the shores of the Arctic Sea, where men's skins are yellowy brown, or beneath the shadow of the Southern Cross, where they are sooty black. There is nothing really noble, though much that is interesting, in the nature of either wolves or hyænas, but neither of these animals ought to be despised. ”

“ When once a lion or lions have killed an animal they almost always open the carcase at the point where the skin is thinnest, that is, in the flank just in front of where the thigh joins the belly. They then at once tear off and eat this thin skin and the flesh attached to it, and all the skin and flesh covering the paunch and entrails, which latter they then proceed to remove from the carcase. The neatness and cleanliness with which lions can take the inside out of an animal they have just killed has always struck me as little short of marvellous. ”

“ I found the Bushmen very good-tempered people, and they are undoubtedly the best of all the natives of South Africa to have with one when in pursuit of game, as they are such wonderful trackers, and so intimately acquainted with the habits of every kind of wild animal. To be seen at their best they must be hungry, but not starving. They will then be capable of marvellous feats of endurance. I have known a Bushman run on elephant spoor in front of my horse for five hours, only very occasionally slowing down to a walk for a few minutes. ”