OSTRICHES AND GIRAFFES 277 



I once watched a small herd of giraffes from the top of an 

 'earth boil,' and from my elevated position got a splendid 

 view of them. They were standing about 500 yards off, in 

 fairly open bush of uniform dark green, which in the distance 

 appeared to be pretty thick, and formed a good background 

 to the numerous mimosa-trees with their table-tops of a much 

 brighter green, on which the giraffes were feeding. The strongly 

 marked colouring of these gigantic and stately creatures tower- 

 ing above the bush made them stand out in clear contrast to 

 their surroundings, as they slowly moved from tree to tree, 

 gracefully twisting and turning their long necks to enable them 

 to nibble the tender shoots of the mimosas in their usual deli- 

 cate manner, giving me the impression that they might indeed 

 be ' monarchs of all they surveyed.' 



The ostrich (Struthio molybdophanes) of East and Central 

 Africa is distinguished from the South African bird by its greater 

 size, and by the cock bird having a blue neck. The feathers at 

 any time are inferior and of little or no market value. The only 

 two birds that I have ever seen with feathers that were at all 

 good were killed by Mr. H. C. V. Hunter at Kilimanjaro in 

 1887, when he had the good fortune to bag them shortly after 

 they had moulted, and before they had rubbed and damaged 

 their wing-feathers when dusting themselves. The ostrich is 

 plentiful in many parts of the country, and goes about in small 

 troops, generally three or four together, though I have twice 

 seen a troop of thirteen, once in the Arusha-wa-Chini country, 

 and once at Machako's. An adult cock ostrich, when standing 

 upright, would measure quite i o ft. to the crown of his head, 

 the hen being rather smaller. How far this bird ranges to the 

 south I am unable to say, but to the north I have seen it near 

 Lake Baringo. The Swahili and Arab traders, who now go up 

 to Lake Rudolph, occasionally bring down small bunches of 

 feathers, which, however, are probably of another species. 

 Throughout the Masai country and east of it to the coast 

 ostriches are to be found in most of the plains and open bush 

 country, where they find plenty of green herbage to feed on, 



