But to go back to the best time of day for shooting. Of course shooting in the heat of the day has its advantages and disadvantages, and some men advocate it in preference to the early morning. After feeding, which is always in the early morning, and again in the evening, as well as throughout the night (though some species of game, notably zebra and several antelopes, continue to feed at all hours of the day and night), game take up their quarters for the day either in the shade of a tree or bush or quite out in the open. When once they have found a place to suit them, they will lie down, or stand about ruminating, and enjoying their siesta, and are not likely to wander about and get into awkward positions. Game, too, is less watchful in the hot hours, and even the sentinel has every appearance of being drowsy and off guard, as it stands at ease on three legs (nearly always with its back to the wind), with ears drooping or lying back, and a look of general contentment and repose about it, as if conscious that its feline enemies are not likely to disturb it, and that it has little else to fear. Even should the herd be lying rather scattered about, with their heads facing in all directions, they do not appear to be so keen at detecting the approach of the stalker as in the morning. Possibly they are either dozing or their senses are dulled from general lassitude, and they rely mostly on the sentinel; or it may be that the haze, which is thicker close to the ground, affects their vision in the same way as it does that of the stalker. Whether their senses are dulled from the effects of the heat, or whether they are less watchful because their natural enemies are unlikely to be abroad at that time, is difficult to conjecture. At all events, if several stalks were made under the same conditions with regard to the place, covert, and wind, some of them up to a herd feeding in the early morning, and the others when they were lying down and standing about in the heat of the day, I think that the stalker would find that he would have to exercise his wits against the game’s instinct far less, and would also find the beasts much easier to circumvent during the heat of the day than in the cool of the morning. In the matter of physical exertion, however, the later stalks are much the most trying and fatiguing. Anyone who has done many long and tedious stalks will, I think, admit that being compelled to crawl two or three hundred yards, or more, flat on his stomach in the bare open plains (where game is generally most plentiful) is terribly trying work during the heat of the day. What with the sun pouring down on the back and nape of the neck, and the scorching heat of the ground striking upwards into the face, together with the burnt grass dust, &c., which get into the mouth and nostrils, and nearly choke him in his desperate efforts to prevent coughing or sneezing, such a stalk requires not only