AN EPISODE OF A MUSEUM EXPEDITION 



By Carl E. Akeley 



With photographs by the Author 



IT was a couple of days after crossing 

 the Houd — we had come a hun- 

 dred miles of waterless desert in 

 Somaliland. We were camped beside a 

 "tug," a dry river course where by dig- 

 ging wells in the stream bed sufficient 

 water for the camels and sixty men was 

 obtainable. Hunting in the open bush 

 of the region, we had seen many ostriches 

 during the two days. It was my first 

 experience with these wary birds and 

 they had managed to escape on each and 

 every occasion of our meeting. I found 

 that instead of hiding their heads in the 

 sand, leaving the great black bodies as 

 targets for my rifle, they kept their bodies 

 hidden behind the bush with only their 

 heads exposed, each head just large 

 enough to carry a pair of very keen 

 eyes. As a result of being continually 

 outwitted by them I came to feel that 

 an ostrich was game well worth while, 

 that I would rather bag an ostrich than 

 a lion. 



One Sunday morning I set out with 

 the intention of devoting the day to an 

 ostrich hunt. Concluding that the small- 

 er the party the better the opportunity, 

 I took only a mule and my syce. In the 

 early morning when only a half mile 

 from camp I met an old hyena who was 

 loafing along after a night out. A 

 moment later one look at his dead car- 

 cass was enough to satisfy me that he 

 would not make the desirable specimen 

 I had thought, for his skin was badly 

 diseased. A little later I shot a good 

 wart hog for our scientific collection. 

 Leaving the specimen where it lay, I 

 marked the spot and continued in search 

 of the plume-bearers. 



A little way farther on I climbed to the 



top of a termite hill about eight feet high 

 to look the country over with field 

 glasses. As I held the glasses to my 

 eyes while adjusting the focus, I suddenly 

 realized that the letter S that I was focus- 

 ing on was the head and neck of an 

 ostrich and that there was a second letter 

 S beside it. The birds remained per- 

 fectly motionless watching and I did like- 

 wise, locating their position meanwhile 

 by the termite hills which were nearly in 

 line between us. Suddenly the heads 

 ducked and disappeared behind the bush. 

 I dropped from my perch and ran rapidly 

 to where they had been, but found only 

 their trail in the sand. 



When I had given up tracking them 

 and was about to start farther afield, I 

 came into an opening in the bush that 

 was about thirty yards wide and two 

 hundred yards long. Near the center 

 of the opening was a dense green bush 

 a dozen feet in diameter. A beautiful 

 cock ostrich broke into the clearing at 

 full speed just below the bush and as I 

 raised my rifle he disappeared behind 

 the bush, so I held ready to catch him 

 as he passed over the remaining fifteen 

 or twenty yards of clear ground. I 

 stood there ready until I felt foolish, 

 when I ran quickly to the bush expect- 

 ing to find him just on the other side. 

 He was nowhere in sight but his trail 

 told the story. As he had come into 

 the open he had seen me and when 

 behind the bush he had stopped short 

 as indicated by a great hole and swirl 

 of sand where he had caught himself 

 by one foot, had turned at right angles 

 and run straight away the length of 

 the clearing, keeping the bush between 

 himself and his enemy. I got one shot 



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