HUNTING-DOGS, LYNXES, CATS, AND OTHERS 



Not far from my camp I had noticed about sixty-four 

 ostriches. As they were moulting, I merely observed 

 them with my field-glass. One day, however, I could 

 not resist the temptation, and decided to shoot a male 

 bird, which I meant to present to the royal museum 

 in Berlin. I singled out one, and, approaching within 

 six hundred feet, fired. The bird flapped its wings and 

 fell. The same moment something began to move with- 

 in the bush which served me as cover. I was startled 

 and also considerably scared, for I thought I had dis- 

 turbed the most dangerous of felines, a leopard, in its 

 lair. It was, however, a lynx which tried to escape, 

 but which fell a victim to the second bullet of my double- 

 barrelled rifle. This was luck, indeed, a fine double 

 shot, an ostrich and a lynx! 



No doubt the Caracal nnhicus is comparatively rare 

 in East Africa, rarer at all events than in the North and 

 South. 



The genets, small and slender felines, are also but 

 rarely met with in the daytime. I found and shot one 

 hiding in a strange place — namely, under the eaves of 

 the house of a Greek merchant in Moschi. Near the 

 Kilimanjaro I discovered some black specimens of these 

 small felines. 



All these small beasts of prey, like the genet, the 

 civet, the ratel, the mongoose, and others, are seldom 

 seen abroad in the daytime, as their habits are noc- 

 turnal. 



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