GOOD-BYE SERGOIT 251 



the ground. It looked as though he had been forced 

 to fold himself up like an umbrella, in his narrow rocky 

 retreat, and that now he could not stretch himself suf- 

 ficiently. After some minutes he gathered his prickly 

 belongings round him, and soberly waddled off. I watched 

 him for a long time till he turned the corner of a rock a 

 quarter of a mile away. 



A little earlier in the evening is the time to find ostrich 

 nests. Ostriches are now strictly preserved; they are 

 much too valuable to be treated any longer as wild game. 

 Every settler wants to rear the young and gather the feather 

 harvest. Three years ago stalking an ostrich meant 

 patient work, and killing one, good shooting. Since then 

 this unusually canny bird has quite altered his habits. 

 Then you could not get near him; now you cannot get 

 away from him. A few days ago an old cock, protecting 

 his fine brood of half-grown youngsters, chased my old 

 mule ignominiously off the Fort Hall road, a few miles 

 out of Nairobi. And I had loudly to call on the "boy" 

 who had charge of the brood to come to my aid. He 

 kept hissing, and shoving his beak into my face. By 

 the way as evidence of the advancement of the country 

 I had scarcely got rid of the great cock, when my poor, 

 demoralized mule for the first time in his life, found him- 

 self confronted with a motor car, with the result that we 

 both of us nearly charged the stiff barbed wire fencing 

 that lined the roadway. 



During the nesting time permits are given to gather 

 the eggs. Now an ostrich's nest is not an easy thing to 

 find by any means. But the cock bird is so good a father, 

 so regular in his hour of home-coming, that his very virtues 

 betray his home. During the dangerous hours of the 

 night he sits on the eggs. At nine in the morning the 

 hen relieves him. And at four in the afternoon, punctually, 

 he comes back and changes places with her. 



