TO THE UASIN GISHU 



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the size of a white-tail deer, which lay close in the reed beds, 

 or in hollows among the tall grass, and usually offered rather 

 difficult running shots or very long standing shots. Still 

 prettier were the little oribi. These are grass antelopes, 

 frequenting much the same places as the duiker and stein- 

 buck and not much larger. Where the grass was long they 

 would lie close, with neck flat along the ground, and dart 

 off when nearly stepped on, with a pig-like rush like that 

 of a reedbuck or duiker in similar thick cover. But where 

 the grass was short, and especially where it was burned, 

 they did not trust to lying down and hiding; on the con- 

 trary, in such places they were conspicuous little creatures, 

 and trusted to their speed and alert vigilance for their 

 safety. They run very fast, with great bounds, and when 

 they stand usually at a hundred and fifty or two hundred 

 yards they face the hunter, the forward-thrown ears be- 

 ing the most noticeable thing about them. We found that 

 each oribi bagged cost us an unpleasantly large number of 

 cartridges. 



One day we found where a large party of hyenas had 

 established their day lairs in the wet seclusion of some reed 

 beds. We beat through these reedbeds, and, in the words 

 once used by an old plains friend in describing the be- 

 havior of a family of black bears under similar circum- 

 stances, the hyenas "came bilin' out." As they bolted 

 Kermit shot one and I another; his bit savagely at a stick 

 with which one of the gun-bearers poked it. It is difficult 

 at first glance to tell the sex of a hyena, and our followers 

 stoutly upheld the wide-spread African belief that they are 

 bi-sexual, being male or female as they choose. A wounded 

 or trapped hyena will of course bite if seized, but shows 



