2C,6 



THE BUPHAGA AFRICANA. 



Many hunters claim that if the rhinoceros happens to be asleep when danger 

 appears, the little friend wilJ peck the inside of his ears until he awakens. 



CAUGHT SIGHT OF THE VAST BEAST." 



In the present instance the party 

 had come almost upon one of the 

 animals without suspecting it. In- 

 deed, the advance was so cautious 

 that the vigilant bird did not dis- 

 cover them until it was almost too 

 late; but it made up for its remiss- 

 ness. It did not rise more than fifty 

 feet from the ground, when it descended and circled about in great excitement, all 

 the time emitting the cries of warning. The horsemen could not see the rhi- 

 noceros, but he was plainly heard as he went crashing through the grass with a 

 speed which the best steed would find it hard to surpass when impeded by the 

 luxuriant vegetation. 



" Let's dash into the grass and charge upon him," proposed Dick, when told 

 that they were so close to the brute. But the Texan shook his head. 



" The fellow can travel faster than we, and that bird will keep him warned all 

 the while, so we won't get within gun-shot of him." 



"Then we might as well turn back and give up," said, Bob; and I should like 

 to know what warrant we had, in the first place, to expect any success in hunting 

 rhinoceroses ? " 



" Others have brought them down ; therefore we may succeed. It isn't every 

 rhinoceros that is furnished with such a bird to give warning when danger threatens. 

 Let us hear what Diedrick has to propose. " 



The Hottentot made known that he and the parties whom he conducted through 

 the grass and jungles had often been baffled in the same manner by the vigilance 

 of the little bird, but, where the hunters numbered three or four, he had succeeded 

 in outwitting the feathered sentinel by a simple device. 



