GOOD-BYE SERGOIT 251 
the ground. It looked as though he had been forced 
to fold himself up like an umbrella, in his narrow rocky 
retreat, and that now he could not stretch himself suf- 
ficiently. After some minutes he gathered his prickly 
belongings round him, and soberly waddled off. I watched 
him for a long time till he turned the corner of a rock a 
quarter of a mile away. 
A little earlier in the evening is the time to find ostrich 
nests. Ostriches are now strictly preserved; they are 
much too valuable to be treated any longer as wild game. 
Every settler wants to rear the young and gather the feather 
harvest. Three years ago stalking an ostrich meant 
patient work, and killing one, good shooting. Since then 
this unusually canny bird has quite altered his habits. 
Then you could not get near him; now you cannot get 
away from him. A few days ago an old cock, protecting 
his fine brood of half-grown youngsters, chased my old 
mule ignominiously off the Fort Hall road, a few miles 
out of Nairobi. And I had loudly to call on the “boy” 
who had charge of the brood to come to my aid. He 
kept hissing, and shoving his beak into my face. By 
the way — as evidence of the advancement of the country 
—TI had scarcely got rid of the great cock, when my poor, 
demoralized mule for the first time in his life, found him- 
self confronted with a motor car, with the result that we 
both of us nearly charged the stiff barbed wire fencing 
that lined the roadway. 
During the nesting time permits are given to gather 
the eggs. Now an ostrich’s nest is not an easy thing to 
find by any means. But the cock bird is so good a father, 
so regular in his hour of home-coming, that his very virtues 
betray his home. During the dangerous hours of the 
night he sits on the eggs. At nine in the morning the 
hen relieves him. And at four in the afternoon, punctually, 
he comes back and changes places with her. 
