THE NATURALIST.
Hunting in Xyassaland. j Tha methods adopted by the natives of Nyassa-and for the snaring and killing of game arc all of the most primitive, and there can be little doubt that the art ot the hwuter is slowly but surely dying out. j Although there remain a few old flint ana j percuesion guns, brought in by the slave >aidin£ Arabs of other days, the tribes have been largely disa-med, and no native is j allowed to possess a gun except under a ] license, which is more or less difficult for | him to obtain, and the general killing or | anarinsr of game has been made illegal under "the game preservation laws. After ail, perhaps least mischief is done by the negro who is the proud possessor of a gun, for though, like the rest of them, he looks for th-> easiest prey, and kills females and young for choice, yet his old gas-pipe barrel <s so eiratic in its Shooting that he can only hops to bag his beast at very close ranges, and so clumsy is he in most oases at stalking thaL it is seldom enough that he comes to quarters. And natives are equally unsuccessful in hunting with the bow ; their ', iron-tipped reed arrows are ill-made and ulbaianced. their heavy bows are calculated or men of far greater strength than they possess, and even at close ranges their lack of skill is remarkable in a people whom the direst struggle foi existence should hava trained to no small skill in the use of weaaons of self-defence. The great excitement of the year outside everyday life comes in the middle of the dry "season, when some mor.the of sun have dried up the country and parched the zra^s and leaves to tmder. Then a hußc org-nn-sefl party, drawn from several villages, will go out one morning with clubs spear's, axes, bows, and cur dogs in dozens, to surround a piece of open bush or grsss countn, perhaps a couple of miles square It 'a fired ir. 3evera! places at once round the outer edge, and the sportsmen stanr! by to await the escaping- animals, which, as the natives are huddled in a dense ring on eve"-y s;<te,> seldom escape without at least a wound. Occasionally lengths of eoars« bark netting are pegged down, and should a be&st come blundering into them there is little hone for him, and he is at once assailed with a dozen spear thrusts and axe blows while entangled. I was once invitedby natives to attend one of these "mchiri hunts, as they call them, and was promieeJ great sport at a "hot corner." But the whole thing was a failure. Wo saw nothing but a pig and a couple of duiker which escaped, and the head man, apologising to me afterwards for the fiasco, said, "i am surprised at our failure. This is an excellent place, and we always lull
much game* Last year we killed two. leopard* and a lion, and they killed two of us. It was the snort of men." Ttnmenw damage was done by these "mchiris." Thsmales and the more powerful animals break through the nets, or the men and escape, but th'- female^, and, young are slaughte^ajl wholesale, aV&|y>i fallen easier firex/ v ' « A very common way of taking game with- , out trouble is -by that most general and < rrfoif uncfenf- of traps, the pitfall: It Ts : . usually abouS 12ft -deep t •'turd may or may : not havo sharpened , stakes or epears set in . ' the V-shaped bottom of it to impale any arifma.' vrhfeh may" fall in. I hate seen a ; series "'of the*e pits dug at intervals-- of 20 yards, and extending over a line half a 5'5 ' mile long, with a rough, strong fence of " boughs built between, so that animals mubt : pass over the falls on. their way down to I the water, and one of the finest kudu I, ever ' saw wa- killed there. '<• Among natives wfio live "beside a. lake or ' streanv great damage is don* to the crops • during the night by hippo, and it is usual to dig pitfalls in the track of the beasts ! between the water and the maize garden ior rice field. As these tracks are often : the only wav through the dense under- ;, growth, such falls make an excellent "booby- ' trap" for the unsuspecting white man, and , one whom I Jtnow was only saved from, being impaled on several spears at the bottom by his rifle jamming across the hole. ■No systematic efforts are made to kill ■ out the carnivora. even near the settle- ■ : menlo. Fatalism is too deeply engrained in them for that. a,nd it is only when they are driven to desperation by the repeated raids of a lion on a village — when they do, ;-not know whose turn it may be next— that they will turn out and try to account for the beast. Some tribes will rather desert a pestered than track down a maneating Jion to its lair. Occasionally, however, one meets with foolhardy courage, as in the case of an old headman I know, who. -angered at the loss of a brother overnight, went off alone and unnoticed tfie n*>xt morning to spoor up the lion, which he shot dead with an arrow as it slept over the half-eaten corpse. He deserved a, better j fate for his bravery, but that same night J the lion's mate broke into his hut and j maa'ed him so terribly that he died, after inflicting some fatal blows with an axe on his assaihnt. Leopards are more often killtd if they persistently steal the village goats, and the young bloods of an Angoin village will somptimes turn out in force to hunt" one. On such occasions it is a point of honour not to use a spear, but to beat the ar.imal to death with knob-kerries. Few casualties, happen. The beast is kept from attacking any particular man by being ■struck on every side at once, and y rl^ tl blows raining on him thick all round he is soon finished One which I skinned was heavily bruised all over the body, and had the skull pounded to a jelly.— London Field. the Moth Loves the Flamo.— Why does a moth fly towards a flame? Because it is inauisitive, was the rather puerile answer given by the great Romanes. Becanae of some" inexplicable inherited instinct, was the reason advanced by other naturalists. Because it is the nature of the insect, was a third and equally unsatisfactory reply. One reason was as good as arothV, but that of Romanes undoubtedly carried of? the popular palm. Perhaps we owe' it to him thai the moth and the flame have pointed many a moral and adorned many a sad tale of curiosity tragically satisfied. ' The investigations of Professor Jacquet Loeb bit* fair to relieve the moth of the moral buiden that has rested on his wing". Professor Loeb has proved' very conclusively that a moth, in common with many insects, flies towards a. flame for the same reason that some Dlants turn their leaves towards the light. "Heliotropism"— from helios, the sun, and tropos. a turn — is the awesome name in which this tendency of plants and animal.* rejo'ees. It happens that there are two kind? of helioiropism. If yoxir moth or insecr flie3 towards the lierht, it » posi tively heliotiopic: if, like the earthworm, ji shrinks from the glare, it is negatively heliotrcpie. Plant?, too, must be classified into these divisions. Just as sorr.e flowers open only by day and others only by night, so some moths fiy only by day and others onW by night. How Sharks Detect Carrion.— lt jb a curious thing, and. so far as present knowledge goes, quite inexplicable, how a shark seems to have an unerring perception of the presence of carrion. By virtue of what sense does he know that at a distance of uerhap-- a couple of miles there is food o be had for the picking up? It can hardly be sight, and to say that it is the sense of smell presupposes an olfactory apparatus of such marve'loui. delicacy that one good whiff from an average "harness-cask would surely burst the machinery fox good and ! all , "and vet our shark will bolt a goodly lumrj of the gamiest sait pork without so much as a wink. No. it cannot be his nose j which leads him. Now a theory has been j put forward by naturalists that the shark: possesses, in common with the Andes condoc, a. special sense, or instinct, which is denied to cleaner-feeding animals. Ihe naturalist cannot explain fch.s sense ; confesses, in fact, that he knows nothing about it; but he can give it a name. He calls it the "carrion 3ense." and with that narr.e, which, of course, explains nothing at all. expects us to be satisfied.— Pearsons Magazine. ________^_^__«—
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Otago Witness, Issue 2814, 19 February 1908, Page 76
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1,490THE NATURALIST. Otago Witness, Issue 2814, 19 February 1908, Page 76
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