MY SOMALI BOOK 159 



animals like the okapi or the bongo, I doubt if there 

 is any creature much more difficult to shoot on foot 

 than the ostrich, unless you find a nest and lie in 

 ambush. 



At the midda}^ halt I was surprised to see a little 

 sandpiper running about on a hartebeest skin spread 

 out to dry, picking here and there, presumably at 

 insects. It did not seem at all the place for one of 

 his kind, there could have been no water within a 

 considerable distance. We had had no trouble about 

 water owing to frequent rain, which we could collect, 

 but an hour or two after the sun came out all moisture 

 had alwaj^s vanished from the surface. 



Even more out of place for the same reason was a 

 kingfisher that I saw in the Hand. Probably he was 

 a kindred spirit to the Indian white-breasted king- 

 fisher which is frequently to be seen away from water, 

 preferring to shikar grasshoppers and their like with 

 the king-crow and myna to angling for the silver 

 chilwa. After all, the laughmg jackass of antipodean 

 fame is nothing but a kingfisher gone astray. 



On the morning of the 12th September, w^hile 

 dressing, I shot a spotted hyaena prowling outside the 

 zariba some eighty yards away, and soon after starting 

 rolled over a grey jackal with the vSherwood, rather a 

 j)retty " flying " shot. I found this species (C. varie- 

 rjalus) much less common than the handsomer black- 

 backed jackal (C. mesomclas). Just afterwards I heard 

 three times repeated a peculiar single note, a clear 

 musical " phew," which Abdilleh said was the call of 

 the hunting-dog, but we did not come across the 

 animal, which is rarely met with. 



