﻿l6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 78 



On Lake IManyara we captured the three white-bearded gnu which 

 we brought to Washington. As we marched along the shore of the 

 lake, the herds of gnu would run in front of us, back and forth 

 the whole day, and when evening came they were very tired and 

 attempted to cut back between us and the lake. Our porters dropped 

 their loads and headed them off. They got into the shallow lake 

 and mixed together. When the splashing had died down, little groups 

 of natives brought back the calves which they had seized. These 

 became tame very quickly, fed readily, and were thoroughly satisfac- 

 tory animals to^ catch and keep. 



Mr. George Le Messurier joined the party to drive the motor 

 car which the Chrysler factory in London had presented to the 

 expedition. He kept the car busy between Umbugwe and Dodoma, 

 carrying in specimens as fast as we had a ton of them accumulated. 

 On the first trip. Dr. Mann accompanied the animals to Dodoma. 

 sending Mr. Runton on to the Masai Steppe to look for young rhinos. 

 We had been told that they were very abundant toward the Ngoro- 

 NgOTO crater. Dr. Mann returned to Umbugwe in a week, climbed 

 the escarpment to Umbulo, and started in the direction of the crater, 

 but on the evening of the first day met Mr. Runton and his party 

 coming down. In one week they had seen only four rhinos, no 

 young nor signs of young, and since Mando, our best native guide. 

 had told of a district, the Ja-aida swamp country, in which he 

 said there were " Faro mingi sana " (very many rhinos) we went 

 down into this region and found what he said to be true. Altogether 

 we saw 22 rhinos. Our safari was charged once while on the march. 

 and four times at night rhinos charged through our camp. But in 

 all of these we failed to locate a, single young specimen. Five differ- 

 ent times we crawled into the scrub 30 or 40 feet from a rhino 

 to see if it had }oung and were disappointed each time. One locates 

 these rhinos, by the way, through the tick birds, which make a loud 

 twittering at the approach of any suspicious object to the rhino on 

 which they are clustered for the purpose of eating the ticks which 

 are so abundant on its body. Theoretically they serve a useful pur- 

 pose to the rhino by warning him of his enemies. Actually we found 

 they were useful in leading us to where the rhino were lying, for 

 we were attracted by the birds to each of the rhinos that we found. 



The night charges are simply the result of the stupidity of the 

 rhino. We camped usually in the vicinity of water holes, and when 

 the near-sighted beast came to water late at night or early in the 

 morning he would suddenly notice that there were fires and natives 

 about. Whereupon he would put his head down and charge through 



