44 THE ODYSSEY OF AN ANIMAL COLLECTOR 
tried to explain matters away by saying that it always kept one 
eye shut—which, in any case, was not true. 
Our specimens refused to eat and could not be tempted with 
anything. The heron tribe are easy to cram as they have large 
gullets, so all one has to do is to push a lump of food down the 
throat, and then work it down the neck into the crop from the 
outside with one’s fingers. This, however, did not work with the 
hammerkops; everything was ejected with ease even when pushed 
to the very bottom of their long necks. As this procedure was get- 
ting us nowhere, we tried the experiment of tying a ribbon round 
the base of the neck after the food had been worked well down. 
The skin of these birds’ necks is loose and any food passing down 
(or up) causes a bulge, so the ribbon prevented the bulge from 
passing upwards. The birds quickly realized that it was useless 
trying to perform the regurgitating act, and soon commenced 
feeding normally on their own. 
There was very little here to compensate « one for the discomfort 
and intense heat, and when the sun went down the mosquitoes 
were unbearable. Sometimes we got our boy to push our meals 
under our mosquito nets while we sat on our beds and fed—in 
this way avoiding the thousands of bloodthirsty brutes that seemed 
to spend their entire lives under the dining-room table waiting to 
pounce on people’s legs. 
A little light relief came one day when a hubbub started near 
the quarters of the boys who worked on the sugar estates. I looked 
up and found them giving chase to a baboon. This one must have 
got cut off from the rest of the troop, and he was quite bewildered 
by the number of natives who bobbed up in his path. Natives in 
most parts of Africa are quick to turn out and chase an animal 
that has wandered on to their lands, and they are surprisingly 
successful in blotting them out with primitive weapons. Meat is 
something they get irregularly and then only by chance, so when 
an opportunity occurs there is a spontaneous call to action. Grab- 
bing a knobkerry or spear they tear off after the animal, spreading 
out so that some are wide on the flanks. The fleeing animal can 
hear noise coming from all directions—for any native ahead hear- 
ing the din immediately joins in—becomes confused, and sooner 
or later makes the mistake of turning and making off in a differ- 
