THE TANA RIVER 



gle. Of course I missed him, but the roar of the shot 

 so surprised him that he came to a stand. Memba 

 Sasa passed me the Springfield, and I managed to get 

 him in the head. At the shot another flashed into 

 view, high up in the top of a tree. Again I aimed 

 and fired. The beast let go and fell like a plummet. 

 "Good shot," said I to myself. Fifty feet down 

 the colobus seized a limb and went skipping away 

 through the branches as lively as ever. In a moment 

 he stopped to look back, and by good luck I landed 

 him through the body. When we retrieved him 

 we found that the first shot had not hit him at all I 



At the time I thought he must have been fright- 

 ened into falling; but many subsequent experiences 

 showed me that this sheer let-go-all-holds drop is 

 characteristic of the colobus and his mode of pro- 

 gression. He rarely, as far as my observation goes, 

 leaps out and across as do the ordinary monkeys, but 

 prefers to progress by a series of slanting ascents 

 followed by breath-taking straight drops to lower 

 levels. When closely pressed from beneath, he will 

 go as high as he can, and will then conceal himself 

 in the thick leaves. 



B. and I procured our desired number of colobus 

 by taking advantage of this habit — as soon as we 

 had learned it. Shooting the beasts with our rifles 

 we soon found to be not only very difficult, but also 



275 



