THE BIG GAME OF AFRICA 



each running away as soon as she became aware of me. 

 One ostrich nest in the upper Rift Valley contained not 

 less than eighteen huge eggs, nine of which were gathered 

 in one heap, over which the bird was brooding. The other 

 eggs, which evidently the mother bird could not cover, 

 had been kicked away from the nest proper and were lying 

 all around the same. The ostrich egg is not an unpalat- 

 able dish. Mr. Lang and I once had three hearty meals, 

 consisting chiefly of the contents of one single ostrich eggj 

 which is said to contain almost as much substance as two 

 dozen ordinary hen's eggs. 



Another and still more common game bird in East 

 Africa is the guinea fowl, or " kanga," as the natives call 

 it. This bird represents here the pheasant family, and 

 seems to be spread all over the continent. Contrary to the 

 habits of the bustard, the guinea fowls always are together 

 in large flocks, I have repeatedly seen anywhere from 

 twenty to one hundred birds at one time on the north- 

 western plains of the Laikipia Plateau, and I once saw at 

 least two hundred to two hundred and fifty together. One 

 Saturday morning, after having discovered this enormous 

 flock of guinea fowl close to our camp the previous night, 

 I started out with a shotgun in hand just a little before 

 daybreak. Anxious to secure some of the birds for food 

 over Sunday, when I generally rested in camp, and closely 

 followed by only one man, I started in the direction 

 where we had seen the birds the evening before. We 

 had only gone a few hundred yards from camp when we 

 heard the whirring noise of the guinea fowl as they flew 

 up all around us. Just as I got the gun ready to fire I saw 



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