As a kid (Late 1950's) I read several books about African hunting that were loaned to me by my father's medical practice partner. The books were signed by the author with very personal notes that led me to believe that my father's partner had treated the author at various times for both illness and injury. I cannot remember the author's name or the titles of the books but I do remember a couple of stories that might enable someone from this site to tell me who the author was.

In one story the author was hired to shoot baboons. He noted a tree where one of the baboons from a group would establish a watch point. He shot that baboon one day and expected to take many more the same way. He then commented that he never saw a baboon in that tree again.

In another story the author tells of trapping some kind of monkey by putting a few mealie kernels inside a coconut shell with a hole that the monkey could get its open hand into but could not get it out if closed around the mealie kernels. Apparently the monkey would not let go of the mealies even when approached by the author and his helpers.

The author was a great fan of the Lee-Enfield .303 as an all around African hunting rifle. He also had a story of trying to teach one of his trackers to shoot a rifle but not being able to convince the individual that the speed of the bullet had nothing to do with how hard he pulled the trigger.

Other stories involved a number of political type issues but I don't remember details.

Anyhow...Can anyone help me identify the author and perhaps titles of these books?

Don't know the book but they talked about that in the John Wayne movie Hatari made many years ago in Tanganyika...


Mike

There were a couple of things in Hatari that reminded me of the books. One story in the books involved netting a bunch of monkeys but I don't remember anything about using rockets to throw the net as was done in the movie.

I checked, Hatari came out in 1962 which would have been well after the books were written as I read them in 1956-58 or thereabouts so I suppose some of the ideas might have come from the books.

If I recall correctly, Alexander Lake wrote a story about catching monkeys with corn kernals in coconuts. He also caught them by getting them drunk.

Was it one of Burgers books?

465H&H

Two hours and nine minutes and Doug E has answered my question. I checked Alexander Lake at Amazon and found the book with the subtitle "Animals lying in wait and hunters lying in print". That rang a big bell. I'll probably purchase the two books advertised on Amazon and slip happily back into some serious nostalgia reading them. For anyone interested the Physician who owned the books I originally read was Dr. James (Jim) Eley. He was practicing in Eureka California into the 70's I think.

AR THE Website for information on anything regarding African hunting.