This paper proposes to pay close attention to the hunting practices of a number of lesser-known German naturalists who went into the field in Southern Africa at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Working with the records of German collectors like Karl Bergius, Ludwig Krebs, Louis Maire, or Johannes Mund produced during their travels through the Cape Colony, I suggest a close reading of these sources to explore the daily deeds and experiences of all historical actors – local and intruder, human and nonhuman alike – involved in these collecting enterprises. The goal is to understand how the practice of killing animals to keep and study them evolved in the terrain as an interspecies affair, and how it was interwoven with violence committed against human life, that is, within the broader historical context of colonial violence and its politics of difference. The paper suggests to remain within the quotidian of microhistories. It scrutinizes material technologies and bodily techniques, rooted in Southern African and European traditions of hunting that informed practices of knowing and appropriating the natural world. It seeks to sketch out quotidian life experiences of hunting parties in which transimperial, interracial, interspecies working relationships, at times companionships, but also antagonisms evolved. And it pays particular attention to daily routines, manual skills, and savoir-faire in the predatory interaction with other living creatures.