MAXING A LION GIDDY.

Waikato Independent, Volume V, Issue 325, 17 January 1907, Page 5

MAXING A LION GIDDY.

DISAPPEARING BIG GAME IlSf AFRICA. 1 Hunters increase in numbers in in*, verse ratio to the diminution of game. I This is the experience of several of our " administrators in Africa, whose views i on the question of preserving “ big game and of constituting reservations on the lines of Yellowstone Park are given in a bulky Blue-book issued re* cently. Lions, however, appear to be as common as ever in parts of British East Africa. Some fifty are killed every year, ; but “big manes ” are very scarce. When a lion kills a man of note in Somaliland the young men go out on : " horseback and gallop round and round it. As the lion turns swiftly round in the ■' cloud of dust it becomes dizzy, and is then shot with poisoned arrows, Bri-gadier-General Swayne, reporting on the reduction of game in Somaliland, says ; that in one place in 1891 he estimated : 10,000 animals, where now he finds only j a dozen at a time. In the earlier days ' he knew two sportsmen who shot eight lions before breakfast. [ -A- 3 showing the remarkable number of ~t big game hunters nowadays, the Commissioner calculates that Uganda has f a direct revenue from them of £20,000. Yet Mr Percival, the game ranger, who is complimented on his work and is said : to be a “ stranger to all ideas of comfort,” ' gets only £250 a year. It is proposed to give him much more power, as well as to restrict, for example, the sale of cow ivory or tusks below a certain weight. There was a proposal to train African elephants for such work as the Indian ones do, but it was found that the disadvantages were great and the cost enormous. It is curious to note that the African beast has a concave back, and • the Indian one a convex, the latter being - much more easily loaded. The African elephant is bigger and fiercer, and experts thinks that he would prove an intractable pupil, as trained Indian elephants' would have been required to teach him.

One of General Swayne’s proposals, “as a sportsman,” for protecting game as to restrict the use of rifles to a bore not less than 577.