Needless to say, the animal-catcher's task is much more difficult than that of the ordinary hunter; from first to last every quest is one long period of anxiety. The simplest part of the work, in many cases, is the capture of the beasts. Thereafter his chief concern is their welfare. He has to attend to their many and varied wants, doctor them when they are sick, and transport them safely for many thousands of miles--often across trackless and practically unexplored country. Not only must he know how to deal with the savage beast, but with the savage man as well, for to accomplish his purpose he has frequently to rely upon the natives to assist him, and he can only do this efficiently by knowing how to handle them. Indeed, there are few callings demanding more qualifications than that of the seeker after live wild animals. The modern collector is a hunter, explorer, and zoologist rolled into one. Naturally, it is the rarer species, such as the rhinoceros, hippopotamus, giraffe, and zebra, that the dealers most prize. And here a word of explanation is necessary. A traveller returning from the wilds of Africa will tell you how he detected hippos floating down the streams and spotted giraffes on the horizon; he will also relate to you how many had been shot in the district only a short while before by some famous sportsman. Yet, if you wished to procure a live rhinoceros to-day, you would probably have to give as much as eight hundred pounds for it, and almost as much for a hippopotamus. Why, one may well ask, this enormous price for a single specimen of these creatures, when they appear to be fairly plentiful in the land of their birth? The reason is easily explained. [Illustration: ELEPHANTS AND BABIES--THE LATTER WERE BORN ON THE WAY TO EUROPE FROM SIAM. _From Photographs._] To-day no hunter would dream of trying to capture a full-grown hippo or rhinoceros. Indeed, it would be practically impossible to hold such an animal, and, even were it possible to entice one into a cage, it would probably only kill itself in its frenzied efforts to escape, or refuse to eat, and so die of starvation. What the hunter endeavours to do, therefore, is to secure the young ones. This he does by hunting along the river banks until he happens to discover a hippo and her young. The thing then is to capture the calf. Mr. Hagenbeck's hunters, or rather the natives engaged by his men, resort to two methods in catching the hippopotamus. The so-called Hawati, or water-hunters, of the Soudan, all of whom are excellent and daring swimmers, harpoon their victims at the noon hour, when they are sunk in deep slumber. Then they pull them to the bank by means of a cord attached to the harpoon, and there make them fast. The hunters use for this a special kind of harpoon, made in such a way that it does not make a deep wound. Fully three-quarters of the hippopotami exhibited in Europe have been captured in this way.