276 THE GUASO NYERO [ch. xi 



a kind of sneeze of alarm or curiosity, and stood broad- 

 side to me, the sun glinting on its handsome coat and 

 polished black horns. One of my Kikuyu followers 

 packed the skin entire to camp. I had more trouble 

 with another oryx, wounding it one evening at three 

 hundred and fifty yards, and next morning following the 

 trail and, after much hard work and a couple of misses, 

 killing it with a shot at three hundred yards. On 

 September 2, I found two newly- born oryx calves. 

 The colour of the oryx made them less visible than 

 hartebeest when a long way off on the dry plains. I 

 noticed that whenever we saw them mixed in a herd 

 with zebra, it was the zebra that first struck our eyes. 

 But in bright sunlight, in bush, I also noticed that the 

 zebra themselves were hard to see. 



One afternoon, while skirting the edge of a marsh 

 teeming with waders and water-fowl, I came across four 

 stately Kavirondo cranes, specimens of which bird the 

 naturalists had been particularly anxious to secure. 

 They were not very shy for cranes, but they would not 

 keep still, and I missed a shot with the Springfield as 

 they walked along about a hundred and fifty yards 

 ahead of me. However, they were unwise enough to 

 circle round me when they rose, still keeping the same 

 distance, and all the time uttering their musical call, 

 while their great wings flapped in measured beats. To 

 shoot flying with the rifle, even at such large birds of 

 such slow and regular flight, is never easy, and they 

 were rather far off; but M'itli the last cartridge in my 

 magazine — the fifth — I brought one whirling down 

 through the air, the bullet having pierced his body. It 

 was a most beautiful bird, black, white, and chestnut, 

 with an erect golden crest, and long, lanceolate grey 

 feathers on the throat and breast. 



