310 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



The other instance may — we only say "may" — have 

 signified something more noteworthy, something in the way 

 of an understanding about a meeting-place, or at least the 

 desire for companionship. Generally we saw giraffes in 

 herds or small parties. If thirty or forty were together, 

 there were usually several old bulls; but a little band of 

 half a dozen or so might contain a bull or might consist 

 only of cows and calves — and, by the way, the young giraffes 

 always struck us as being more alert, lively, and suspicious 

 than the old ones. We also came on giraffes singly or in 

 couples ; and these solitary ones might be either bulls or cows. 

 At one of the drinking-places frequented by the game along 

 the Northern Guaso Nyiro, and at only one, we saw the huge 

 footprints of the giraffes mingled with the hoof-marks of 

 bucks and zebras. Late one afternoon, while returning to 

 camp with the gun-bearers, one of us (Colonel Roosevelt) 

 thought he would glance at this water-hole. Before reaching 

 it he found the track of a single giraffe leading to it. When a 

 quarter of a mile away he saw the giraffe standing in the open, 

 perhaps a hundred yards from the water. The giraffe stood 

 motionless, looking toward some low hills — not back along his 

 own track, but in a nearly opposite direction. Colonel Roose- 

 velt had no thought of harming him, and wished to see him 

 drink — giraffes straddle their forelegs wide apart, either lat- 

 erally or fore and aft, in order to drink. The giraffe stood in 

 the same place and position for fifteen or twenty minutes. 

 Then suddenly another giraffe appeared round a low hillock, 

 a long distance off, coming toward the water. It stopped 

 short, apparently on seeing the first one, when not very far 

 away. After gazing for some time the newcomer resumed 

 its march. It halted on coming beside the other, and the 



