254 BIRDS OF DAMARA LAND. 



comrade here and there at convenient intervals, and, 

 having found their destined victims, the favourite haunts 

 of which are well known to them, gradually and cau- 

 tiously begin to drive the unsuspecting birds towards 

 their passive confederates. As soon as they have fairly 

 succeeded in directing the course of the Ostriches 

 towards the desired quarter, they urge them on at a 

 steady telling pace ; and as the birds pass the mounted 

 men, who had been left behind at intervals, each of 

 these successively takes up the pursuit, enabling the 

 previous pursuer to drop behind and to allow his horse 

 to recover its wind, whilst the Ostriches, on the con- 

 trary, are never for a moment allowed to slacken their 

 pace in their now headlong flight. The relieved hunters 

 follow leisurely in an extended line or semicircle as the 

 occasion may require, thus forming an effectual barrier 

 to the retreat of the birds should they attempt such a 

 course ; whilst the Ostriches, by the time they reach 

 the main body of horsemen, or even sooner, become 

 so exhausted as to come to a dead halt or to fall help- 

 lessly to the ground, when the hunters slaughter them 

 at leisure. It has happened that so great a number of 

 Ostriches have thus been entrapped and completely 

 tired out, that after as many had been killed as were 

 required for food, the remainder, after being despoiled 

 of their valuable wing- and tail-feathers, were suffered to 

 depart without further injury. 



[Mr. Andcrsson's work on Lake Ngami contains, at page 253, 

 a spirited representation and description of the capture of some 

 young Ostriches by Mr. Galton and himself; and the latter mav 



