ANIMALS AND DANGER

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue LXVIII, 22 June 1912, Page 10

ANIMALS AND DANGER

An interesting question is raised by an account which appeared in the Field i extracted from a letter written in South ' Africa by Mr Reginald Sharpe, the son ! of Sir Alfred Sharpe. The extract is ' as follows:

"I saw something rather interesting the other day. I was on the edge of a 'dambo' (open glade) near the Lujenda banks, and was watching a herd of about 12 reed buck, when I saw a lion walking towards them, and not in any way trying to conceal himself. He was walking up-wind, and passed within ten or twelve yards of one ram bushbuck, and in full view of it, and of the herd, but beyond staring, they took no notice of him, and the lion went straight on to a dried-up watercourse where he disappeared from view. This watercourse took him to windward of the bushbuck. As soon as they got his wind they bounded oif. It would almost seem that they had,not recognised him by sight as a harmful beast, and that they depend on smell almost solely to warn them of danger. I followed the lion, and found him in the watercouse. . . .

I also found the traces of a kill, aiul, spooring these up, came on a dead hippo calf, which had been disembowelled. Lions seem to be found of young hippos, as further down the river I afterwards found another young one which had been killed by lions."