THE GUASO NYERO 335 



after much hard work and a couple of misses killing it with 

 a shot at three hundred yards. On September 2, I found 

 two newly born oryx calves. The color of the oryx made 

 them less visible than hartebeest when a long way off on 

 the dry plains. I noticed that whenever we saw them 

 mixed in a herd with zebra, it was the zebra that first struck 

 our eyes. But in bright sunlight, in bush, I also noticed 

 that the zebra themselves were hard to see. 



One afternoon, while skirting the edge of a marsh 

 teeming with waders and water-fowl, I came across four 

 stately Kavirondo cranes, specimens of which bird the 

 naturalists had been particularly anxious to secure. They 

 were not very shy for cranes, but they would not keep still, 

 and I missed a shot with the Springfield as they walked 

 along about a hundred and fifty yards ahead of me. How- 

 ever, they were unwise enough to circle round me when 

 they rose, still keeping the same distance, and all the time 

 uttering their musical call, while their great wings flapped 

 in measured beats. Wing shooting with the rifle, even 

 at such large birds of such slow and regular flight, is never 

 easy, and they were rather far off; but with the last car- 

 tridge in my magazine the fifth I brought one whirling 

 down through the air, the bullet having pierced his body. 

 It was a most beautiful bird, black, white, and chestnut, 

 with an erect golden crest, and long, lanceolate gray feathers 

 on the throat and breast. 



There were waterbuck and impalla in this swamp. I 

 tried to get a bull of the former but failed. Several times 

 I was within fifty yards of doe impalla and cow water- 

 buck, with their young, and watched them as they fed and 

 rested, quite unconscious of my presence. Twice I saw stein- 

 buck, on catching sight of me, lie down, hoping to escape 

 observation. The red coat of the steinbuck is rather con- 

 spicuous, much more so than the coat of the duiker; yet it 

 often tries to hide from possible foes. 



Late in the afternoon of September 3, Cuninghame and 

 Heller, with the main safari, joined me, and I greeted 



