CHAPTER TY 
LEOPARDS AND RHINOS 
HERE is a general belief firmly fixed in the 
popular mind by constant repetition that the 
ostrich is a very stupid bird. A man might 
well expect easy hunting of a bird that tried to hide 
by the traditional method of sticking its head in the 
sand. But I found that the ostrich, like other 
African animals, did not always realize its obliga- 
tion to tradition or abide by the rules set down 
for its behaviour. I went a long way into the 
waterless desert of Somaliland after ostriches. We 
were just across the Haud and were camped in a 
“tug”? or dry stream bed where by digging we could 
get water for our sixty men and the camels. During 
two days of hunting in the dry bush of this desert [ 
had seen many ostriches, but none of them had put 
its head into the ground and left its big black-and- 
white plumed body for me to shoot at. On the con- 
trary, in this my first experience with them I found 
them exceedingly wary. They kept their bodies 
hidden behind the bush. Only their heads were ex- 
posed, each head only about large enough to carry a 
pair of very keen eyes and much too small to serve 
as a target at the distance that they maintained. As 
a result of being continually outwitted by them for 
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