In his Great Rift Valley (p. 265) Gregory observes that the great herds of game which roamed over the steppes of South Africa are being rapidly decreased in size and number. Man no doubt has played the leading part in the annihilation of the enormous herds that once thronged Cape Colony. The fact that during the last few years the game has retreated from the Somali coast into the interior shows how easily it can be driven from a district. In South Africa, however, man's influence has probably been insignificant as compared with natural agencies, lions and disease being the leading factors in extermination. Vast herds of the wild buffalo (Bubalus caffer) were exterminated between 1890 and 1893 by the cattle disease (rinderpest), which also killed off the gnu and giraffe (op. cit., p. 266). Gordon Cumming' observed, as early as 1855, that " . the goat in many districts is subject to a disease called by the Boers 'brunt sickta,' or burnt sickness, owing to the animals afflicted with it exhibiting the appearance of having been burnt. It is incurable; and if the animals inflicted are not speedily killed, or put out of the way, -the contagion rapidly spreads, and it is not uncommon for a farmer to lose his entire flock with it. This sad distemper also extends itself to the ferm nature. I have shot hartebeests, black wilde-