278 BIG GAME SHOOTING 
whether grass or the leaves of various bushes. At Merereni, 
on_the coast, in 1886, where I bagged three, two cocks anda 
hen, the hen bird was feeding on the young shoots of a small- 
leaved mangrove bush by the side of a creek. Each of these 
birds when cut open was found to have about 3 lbs. weight of 
pebbles inside its gizzard. 
Ostriches are even more difficult to stalk than giraffes, as 
they are mostly found out in the open, and unless the sports- 
man can get a bush sufficiently tall to prevent their seeing him 
over it, or can take advantage of the dry bed of a watercourse, 
should there be one near, it is almost hopeless to try to stalk 
them. They are, however, not difficult to drive, and I have 
twice succeeded in circumventing them in this way, once with 
Sir Robert Harvey, and another time when alone. Once I 
tried to approach a troop of five by using my imitation ostrich, 
the Bushman’s stratagem (with which I was so successful 
with G. Grantii), but failed so hopelessly—the birds at 
once detecting the fraud and never allowing me to get 
within 500 yards of them—that I never tried it again. The 
best day I ever had with these birds was when I came across 
three, which I saw from a long way off, feeding amongst some 
small scattered bushes on a slope in undulating ground. By 
taking advantage of the low ground on the other side of the 
undulation, I succeeded, after a long and painful crawl, in 
getting up toa bush near the top. Here I could see the long 
neck and head of one of them over the brow, and was pleased ~ | 
to notice that they had altered their position and were feeding in 
my direction. Sitting quite still, I waited until they were within 
seventy yards of me, and got two of them with a right and left 
shot. The other one bolted down the slope of the hill away 
from me and disappeared for a few seconds, but apparently lost 
its head ; for on standing up I saw it coming back ; as it had j 
ee a a 
not seen me, I stooped down behind the bush, and when it 4 
raced past about seventy or eighty yards off, with head held q i 
back and wings extended, I knocked it ‘over. 
