Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo15amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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try, it is rather difficult to hunt them. While elephant-hunting in Uganda we found the buffalo a decided nuisance, frequently coming on to them unexpectedly while hot on an elephant trail, sometimes ha^'ing difficulty in getting rid of them, not wishing to shoot or stampede them he- cause of the danger of frighten- ing away the elephants, to say nothing of the constant menace of running into a truculent old bull at very close quarters in dense jungle. The buffalo act- ually mingle with the elephants, each quite indifferent to the other, excepting that on one occasion we found elephant calves charging into a herd of butt'alo, evidently only in play. They chased about squealing and stampeding the buffalo, who kept at a safe distance but did not actually take alarm. Occa- sionally an old cow whose calf was being hard-pressed by the young elephants would turn, apparently with the intention of having it out, I)ut would always bolt before the elephant could actually reach her. In spite of the fact that the record head, fifty-four inches in spread, was shot by Mr. Knowles in Uganda, from our general observation, the heads in Uganda run smaller than those of British East Africa while the animals are perhaps hea\'ier. While on our buff'alo-hunting we have never had any actually serious encount- ers, we fully appreciate that the buffalo deserves his reputation as one of the
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Kikuyu port.'r witii i)uilalu skiill most dangerous of big-game animals. His eyesight is good, he has keen scent and is vigilant and vindictive. While the lion is usually satisfied with giving his victim a knock-out blow or ))ite, the buf- falo when once on the trail of man will not only persist in his eff'orts to find him but when he has once come up with him, will not leave while there is a vestige of life remaining in the victim. In some cases he will not leave while there is a fragment of the man remaining large enough to form a target for a l)uff'alo's stamping hoofs. 161

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