BIG GAME STORIES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19762, 13 April 1926, Page 13

BIG GAME STORIES.

Mr Stillman W. Eells, United States Consul in Leeds, entertained members of the Leeds Municipal Officers’ Luncheon Club recently with stories of his big game hunting experiences in East Africa. It was absurd, he said, to regard the lion as the “terror of the wild.” The lion, unless he had tasted human blood or was very hungry, would not attack. His bite was not the worst part of him; bloodpoisoning from the claw of the animal was the chief danger to a wan wounded in an encounter with the “king of the forest.” The real “star turn” so far as danger w-as concerned was the buffalo, and a scrap with him had inevitably only one ending — death. A' man had no chance against the buffalo if the animal reached him. One evening when goinjf home with his wife in a rickshaw after dinner Mr Eells said they encountered a lioness in the pathway. They thought it was the postmaster’s mastiff, and did not learn their mistake until the following day. On another occasion they escaped the charge of a herd of 00 buffalo by 20 yards. Another curious fact mentioned by the speaker was the nervousness of the zebra. Ibis animal, he said, was held to have the smallest heart of any quadruped of its size, which accounted for its never having been utilised to any extent for draught or similar purposes. One day, while sitting on the verandah of-an hotel near Nairobi, he saw a herd of eight zebras stampeding directly towards him. They turned off towards the town, and two of them collided with a motor car and were killed. All the remaining six fell dead in different parts of the town from sheer fright. The hyena, while a wicked customer, was mostly a scavenger, and little more to be feared than a dog.