266 THE FAUNA OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA part hi 



has been supplied by Gedge, who followed Jackson a few 

 months later. Several times a day his caravan had to diverge 

 from its path, to avoid the stench from a rotting carcase — in 

 fact he saw fifteen in one day ; but he did not see a single 

 living buffalo.^ Cattle disease had swept through the country, 

 and destroyed them all. 



The gnu and the giraffe have suffered almost as badly ; I 

 only saw one of the former and one herd of the latter, both on 

 the Kapte plains ; but in the valley of the Thika-thika I found 

 giraffe bones nearly every day, and once saw the remains of 

 six skeletons on a single march. Giraffe and gnu are both 

 subject to the same disease as the buffalo, and thus in British 

 East Africa they have almost shared its fate. 



Another mammal that is now almost extinct is the Square- 

 mouthed or Burchell's Rhinoceros {Rhinoceros sivius), which 

 differs from the ordinary Rhinoceros bicornis in having the 

 mouth square and adapted for browsing, instead of prehensile 

 and fitted to feed on leaves and shrubs. This species is only 

 certainly known south of the Zambesi, and even there it is 

 almost extinct. In marching across Laikipia I came one 

 evening upon three rhinoceros together, browsing on the 

 steppes. I was attracted by their light gray colour, and 

 stalked them. As I approached, I found they differed from 

 the ordinary rhinoceros, not only in colour, but in the blunt- 

 ness of the head and in the shape of the horn. I had only a 

 Martini rifle with me, and had by this time come to the conclusion 

 that, in open ground, it was advisable not to attack more than 

 one rhinoceros at a time. But I was so interested in these 

 three, that I resolved to risk the attempt to secure one. I got 

 within about sixty yards, when the birds resting on the backs 

 of the animals saw me ; their fluttering and cries disturbed the 

 rhinoceros, which fled. I sprang up and sent a bullet into the 

 hindmost, but the animal went on. It was late in the after- 

 noon, and I was far from camp, so that I could not continue 

 the chase. I reported this as soon as I returned to England, 

 and before having read von Hohnel's statement " that Count 

 Teleki had killed a white rhinoceros a little to the north-east 

 of Lake Baringo ; nor did I then know that a horn (now in 



^ Big Game Shooting, Badminton Library, vol. i. (1894), p. 217. 

 - Zicm Rudolf-See, p. 542. 



