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  1. #11
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    Default Re: 10 BEST HUNTING BOOKS

    Quote Originally Posted by treeman View Post
    Death in the Long Grass by Peter Hathaway Capstick

    I was going to post this book, Till now I did not not know it was by Capstick - THE Capstic.
    I read this when I was like 16 and about Capstick 40 years later.

    Was one of the most memories creating books I ever read - when Ivory reached the price of a Pound for a Pound I left for Africa.

    I have two from my youth. They are not hunting books though

    Die Siel Van Die Mier, Eugene Marais (The Soul Of The White Ant)
    Diere By Die Drinkplek, Cherry Kearton (The Animals Came To Drink)

    Excerpt from The Soul Of The White Ant.

    "Deeply rooted in them therefore is the fear of this arch-enemy (water) of their race. The only solution they have is flight - early and as far as possible.

    If you dig a little furrow across their path and fill it with water you cause the greatest bewilderment amongst the ants. On both sides of the furrow there congregates an excited throng and it takes them a very, very long while to discover that an easy solution would be to make a detour. Before they think of this,however, you place a grass stalk across the waterway to serve as a bridge and at once you will be enabled to watch very peculiar and mysterious behaviour. The ants begin to test this dangerous bridge. One by one, they try the bridge with their forelegs, stretching their bodies across it, while they cling to the bank with their back legs. They feel the bridge with their forelegs and antennae, then become aware of the water and hastily retreat to tell their companions that undoubtedly the bridge is quite, unsafe. This is what happens on the bank which is on the same side as the nest,where the unladen ants congregate. On the other side of the bridge, the side farthest from the nest, the behaviour of the ants is quite different. The ants arrive here, each laden with a grass seed. Generally the seed is so heavy that the gait of the ant is very much impeded and difficult. What happens at the bridge?With apparently not the least hesitation each ant steps on to the straw with its gigantic burden. Sometimes it capsizes, but clings to the bridge with all its legs, and crosses.Always it succeeds in bringing its load to safety and hastens homewards to the nest as though nothing untoward had happened.

    Here you are confronted by a riddle; the unladen ant is afraid to risk its life on the bridge; the laden ant crosses with a load which makes its passage a hundred times more dangerous. The carrying of the burden cannot lessen its awareness of the water. Now take a square piece of tin covered with earth and push it under the ants congregated on the nestward side of the bridge. When they are gathered thickly on the tin, pick this up with the ants.With a fine camel-hair brush mark as many ants as possible with a small red mark on the hinder part of the body, and then shake them on to the ground beyond the bridge. Immediately they all dash off along the path, to return shortly each carrying a grass seed, and they cross the bridge without a qualm, as if they had been crossing bridges all their lives.After a while some of your marked ants will return from the nest, having safely deposited the seed. When they come to the bridge they stop, and nothing you can do will give one single ant the courage to cross the bridge. And so you may continue from morning till night, if you have the patience of a naturalist, until almost every ant is marked with a red spot. In the end you will have learnt two things:

    First, that you will never teach the ants by their own experience that the bridge can be crossed in safety. Secondly, you will never teach the ants that if the bridge is safe for a heavily laden ant it must be, proportional to the load,so much safer for an unladen ant. They prove this for themselves hundreds of times. If you were to continue this experiment for months,the ants would be able to prove this fact thousands of times, but their behaviour never changes, until at last you will give them up as hopeless. The unladen ant will never dare to cross the bridge, but as soon as he returns with his heavy burden, he crosses without hesitation."

  2. #12

    Default Re: 10 BEST HUNTING BOOKS

    Thanks DaavG!

  3. #13

    Default Re: 10 BEST HUNTING BOOKS

    Thanks Meteor, he also wrote 'My Friends the Baboons' which is apparently also equally revealing (on the to read list)

    Quote Originally Posted by Meteor View Post
    I have two from my youth. They are not hunting books though

    Die Siel Van Die Mier, Eugene Marais (The Soul Of The White Ant)
    Diere By Die Drinkplek, Cherry Kearton (The Animals Came To Drink)

    Excerpt from The Soul Of The White Ant.

    "Deeply rooted in them therefore is the fear of this arch-enemy (water) of their race. The only solution they have is flight - early and as far as possible.

    If you dig a little furrow across their path and fill it with water you cause the greatest bewilderment amongst the ants. On both sides of the furrow there congregates an excited throng and it takes them a very, very long while to discover that an easy solution would be to make a detour. Before they think of this,however, you place a grass stalk across the waterway to serve as a bridge and at once you will be enabled to watch very peculiar and mysterious behaviour. The ants begin to test this dangerous bridge. One by one, they try the bridge with their forelegs, stretching their bodies across it, while they cling to the bank with their back legs. They feel the bridge with their forelegs and antennae, then become aware of the water and hastily retreat to tell their companions that undoubtedly the bridge is quite, unsafe. This is what happens on the bank which is on the same side as the nest,where the unladen ants congregate. On the other side of the bridge, the side farthest from the nest, the behaviour of the ants is quite different. The ants arrive here, each laden with a grass seed. Generally the seed is so heavy that the gait of the ant is very much impeded and difficult. What happens at the bridge?With apparently not the least hesitation each ant steps on to the straw with its gigantic burden. Sometimes it capsizes, but clings to the bridge with all its legs, and crosses.Always it succeeds in bringing its load to safety and hastens homewards to the nest as though nothing untoward had happened.

    Here you are confronted by a riddle; the unladen ant is afraid to risk its life on the bridge; the laden ant crosses with a load which makes its passage a hundred times more dangerous. The carrying of the burden cannot lessen its awareness of the water. Now take a square piece of tin covered with earth and push it under the ants congregated on the nestward side of the bridge. When they are gathered thickly on the tin, pick this up with the ants.With a fine camel-hair brush mark as many ants as possible with a small red mark on the hinder part of the body, and then shake them on to the ground beyond the bridge. Immediately they all dash off along the path, to return shortly each carrying a grass seed, and they cross the bridge without a qualm, as if they had been crossing bridges all their lives.After a while some of your marked ants will return from the nest, having safely deposited the seed. When they come to the bridge they stop, and nothing you can do will give one single ant the courage to cross the bridge. And so you may continue from morning till night, if you have the patience of a naturalist, until almost every ant is marked with a red spot. In the end you will have learnt two things:

    First, that you will never teach the ants by their own experience that the bridge can be crossed in safety. Secondly, you will never teach the ants that if the bridge is safe for a heavily laden ant it must be, proportional to the load,so much safer for an unladen ant. They prove this for themselves hundreds of times. If you were to continue this experiment for months,the ants would be able to prove this fact thousands of times, but their behaviour never changes, until at last you will give them up as hopeless. The unladen ant will never dare to cross the bridge, but as soon as he returns with his heavy burden, he crosses without hesitation."

  4. #14
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    Join Date
    Feb 2011
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    Western Cape
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    Default Re: 10 BEST HUNTING BOOKS

    Quote Originally Posted by Crosshairs View Post
    Thanks Meteor, he also wrote 'My Friends the Baboons' which is apparently also equally revealing (on the to read list)
    Yes, they can be found as a single volume too.

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