154 
ing on our hands and knees in the grass 
for a considerable distance. In this 
manceuvering it happened that Mrs. 
Akeley was able to stalk the best bull, 
and a few minutes later he had been 
finished off and we were busy photo- 
graphing, measuring and preparing the 
skin. Twice during the operation of 
skinning we had to send our boys to 
chase off curious rhinos who acted as 
though they wanted to come in and 
break up the party. This bull became 
the big bull of the Chicago group. 
Some twenty-five miles to the north- 
west from the Tana, across the plain 
on the Theba River, is a marsh, the 
tinga-tinga of the natives, where a herd 
of nearly a hundred buffalo was known 
to live, but the Provincial Commissioner 
had definitely said that we were not to 
We decided finally to ask 
for the privilege, which was granted but 
shoot these. 
with a warning in the form of an explana- 
tion, that he had told us not to shoot 
there because of the danger involved. 
We found the tinga-tinga a reed marsh 
about one by two miles in extent with, at 
that time, a foot or two of water in the 
buffalo trails that crisscross in all direc- 
tions. On arrival, while making camp at 
one end of the marsh just at dusk, we 
saw the herd come out on dry land a half- 
mile away — but they returned to cover 
In fact 
during nearly two weeks that we spent 
before we could approach them. 
there, we saw them come outside the 
swamp only twice, each time to return 
immediately. 
We made several attempts to approach 
them in the marsh but found that while 
it was quite possible to get up to them, 
it was out of the question to choose our 
specimens. Also it would have been 
impossible to beat a retreat in case of a 
charge or stampede, so we adopted a 
campaign of watchful waiting. From 
the camp at daybreak we would scan the 
THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 
marsh for the snowy cow herons that 
were always with the buffalo during the 
daytime. These would fly about above 
the reeds from one part of the herd to 
another and at times where the reeds 
were low they could be seen riding along 
perched on the backs of the animals. 
Having thus located the herd and de- 
termined the general direction of its 
movements, we would go to a point at 
the edge of the marsh where it seemed 
likely that the animals would come out, 
or at least come near enough to be visi- 
ble in the shorter reeds. It was in this 
way that we secured the specimen that 
makes the young bull of the group — and 
the tinga-linga 
resulted in securing no other specimen. 
two weeks spent at 
On this one occasion the buffalo accom- 
panied by the white herons, had come 
to within about a hundred yards of our 
position on the shores of the swamp. 
They were in reeds that practically con- 
cealed them, but the young buffalo in 
question in the act of throwing up his 
head to dislodge a bird that had irritated 
him, disclosed a pair of horns that indi- 
cated a young bull of the type I wanted. 
At the same time a heron standing on his 
withers gave me the clue to his position 
and aiming some two feet below the bird, 
I succeeded in killing the bull with a 
heart shot. 
Feeling that it was practically impos- 
sible to choose and collect the desired 
series from this herd, we determined to 
go back to the bush and plains between 
the Theba and Tana rivers in an effort 
to locate a herd that we had seen earlier 
on the Tana. Knowing that this herd 
must go daily to water either at the Tana 
or the Theba, which bounded the two 
sides of the triangular territory through 
which we were working, we decided to go 
down the Theba to its Junction with the 
Tana, then up the Tana to our original 
buffalo camp. From the swamp down 
