498 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



Next morning Kermit and I with the bulk of the safari 

 walked back to our main camp, on the Nile, leaving Cun- 

 inghame and Heller where they were for a day, to take 

 care of the buffalo skin. Each of us struck off across the 

 country by himself, with his gun-bearers. After walking 

 five or six miles I saw a big rhino three-quarters of a mile 

 off. At this point the country was flat, the acacias very 

 thinly scattered, and the grass completely burnt off, the 

 green young blades sprouting; and there was no difficulty 

 in making out, at the distance we did, the vast gray bulk of 

 the rhino as it stood inertly under a tree. Drawing nearer 

 we saw that it had a good horn, although not as good as 

 Kermit's best; and approaching quietly to within forty 

 yards I shot the beast. 



At the main camp we found that Mearns had made 

 a fine collection of birds in our absence; while Loring 

 had taken a variety of excellent photos, of marabou, vult- 

 ures, and kites feeding, and, above all, of a monitor lizard 

 plundering the nest of a crocodile. The monitors were 

 quite plentiful near camp. They are amphibious, carniv- 

 orous lizards of large size; they frequent the banks of the 

 river, running well on the land, and sometimes even climb- 

 ing trees, but taking to the water when alarmed. They 

 feed on mice and rats, other lizards, eggs, and fish; the 

 stomachs of those we caught generally contained fish, for 

 they are expert swimmers. One morning Loring sur- 

 prised a monitor which had just uncovered some crocodile 

 eggs on a small sandy beach. The eggs, about thirty in 

 number, were buried in rather shallow fashion, so that the 

 monitor readily uncovered them. The monitor had one 

 of the eggs transversely in its mouth, and, head erect, was 

 marching off with it. As soon as it saw Loring it dropped 

 the egg and scuttled into the reeds; in a few minutes it 

 returned, took another egg, and walked off into the bushes, 

 where it broke the shell, swallowed the yolk, and at once 

 returned to the nest for another egg. Loring took me out 

 to see the feat repeated, replenishing the rifled nest with 



