THE RHINOCEROS 259 
it to bea cow, so I sat down in the grass, as there was no other 
covert, and waited until she walked under a small thorn-tree 
about half a mile off. Under the shade of this tree the grass 
was considerably longer ; she soon lay down, and I walked 
straight up to within about 200 yards, when she got up, obliging 
me and my gun-bearer to drop down into the grass and lie 
still till she again lay down. 
_ Although she had no birds on her back, she appeared rest- 
less, and kept raising her head, which I attributed to the fact 
that she was dead to leeward of the other two rhinos, some 
quarter of a mile off, and as she was almost facing us, we 
lay still to give her time to settle down and go to sleep. 
I was particularly anxious to make sure of her, as she had the 
best horn I had seen up to thattime. As the grass was some 
18 ins. long, though there was not a particle of other covert, we 
crawled forward on hands and knees and had little difficulty 
in getting within roo yards of her, when we took a short rest, 
as grovelling through the grass was hot work. We then crawled 
on, flat on our stomachs, and when within about 50 yards 
I raised my head, saw that some 20 yards further on there was 
a tuft of slightly longer grass, and determined to get up to 
this before firing. However, just before we reached it, some 
half-dozen birds came from the direction of the other two rhinos, 
and settled on our cow’s back, but we eventually succeeded in 
reaching the tuft. The difficulty now was to get into a sitting 
position and ready to shoot without being seen by the birds. 
To do this I worked my legs towards the rhino as I lay on 
my Side, and gradually raised myself into a sitting position, but 
at that instant the birds saw me, and flew up with their usual 
cryofalarm. At the same moment the rhino raised herself on her 
forelegs like a huge pig, and I then realised that I was nearer 
than I intended to get, only about 20 yards separating us, but 
she did not appear to see me. As she remained sitting in this 
position, without moving my body, which I knew might attract 
attention, I stretched out my arm behind me for the 4-bore, 
but did not feel it at first, and thought that for once my faithful 
$2 
