6 THE ODYSSEY OF AN ANIMAL COLLECTOR 
the sexes changing over at dusk and dawn. The chicks are de- 
lightful things. I remember that one brood, which we used to shut 
up with the mother in a stable at night, used to perform the most 
amusing antics on being let out in the morning. The whole lot— 
mother included—used to spend the first five or ten minutes danc- 
ing, pirouetting and doing zig-zag runs until they had got over 
the joy of being let out. The mother used to like crossing the. river 
through a shallow ford to a green patch on the opposite side where 
she used to feed. The chicks were forced to swim, which they do 
quite well. When it rained miles away in the hills this narrow 
river had a habit of rising suddenly many feet although there had 
been no local rain. Through this we lost some chicks one day: the 
mother ostrich had swum the fast-flowing, flooded river, but the 
chicks, in trying to follow, were swept downstream among the 
reeds and drowned. Ever after, this bird was accompanied by a 
herd boy. 
Once I was caught on the wrong side of the river when it rose 
in this way. I had crossed only a few hours before on horseback, 
when the water at the ford was not more than a foot deep, but 
now I was faced with a torrent of doubtful depth. As the water 
was still rising and I had no desire to pass the night on the veldt, 
I decided to risk crossing. A native, also stranded, sat on the horse 
behind me. About half-way across, the horse began to float and the 
speed of the current did the rest. We went downstream and were 
washed off his back. My immediate concern was for the boy’s safety 
as he was a non-swimmer, but he had the presence of mind to grab 
the horse’s tail, and so was towed safely to shore. In the mean- 
time I drifted downstream rapidly, and gained the shore at my 
leisure, but swimming with trousers and boots on is never a joy. 
It was an ideal existence for a lad—plenty of hard work, and 
recreation in the form of swimming, shooting, fishing, and horse- 
back riding. The birds were wonderful—the most conspicuous 
being hornbills, blue rollers, bee-eaters and Glossy Starlings. The 
latter have iridescent plumage and look wonderful in flocks in the 
sunshine. The clearness of the atmosphere is one of the most sur- 
prising things to a new arrival. I remember seeing from the top 
of a kopje a herd of cattle on a farm twenty miles away. They 
