94 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XITJ, 
acquaintance with the animal; but Dr. Donaldson-Smith gave me'the hint 
as the result of very extended experience with troublesome Rhinos under 
divers conditions, and though I was sceptical on the subject at first, my 
doubts were ere long removed by asomewhat disastrous encounter ; the 
manner of which seems worth recording, whether as demonstrating what to 
avoid in one or two details incidental to the quest of Rhinoceros bicornis 
or as furnishing a good example of the red-letter days which occasionally, 
and generally so unexpectedly, figure in the log-book of a hunting-trip such as 
ours, The events of the two days in question were not entirely furnished 
by the Rhino, but I may as well give the whole of them : — 
On the 8th March, I had tracked up a pair of lions and eventually bagged 
one of them, After taking off the skin I left the carcase of the slain where 
it fell, and that night tied up a bait hard by, in the shape of an old broken- 
down camel, in case the male should haply return to see what had become of 
his mate. 
March 9, Donaldson-Smith and I were up with the lark, and went 
down to see if the camel which we left out last night had been killed, Yes, 
good luck to it, it had ; not much, however, of the carcase had been eaten, 
only one hind-quarter ; but on the other hand the remains of my lioness of 
yesterday had been taken away, and froma cursory examination of the 
tracks round the kill more than one lion seemed to have been at work, I had 
had my “ day out” yesterday, so we had arranged before starting out that 
D. 8. should take the shot to-day, if we came up with a lion together, and we _ 
now proceeded to take up the track of the animal that had dragged the lio- 
ness’s carcase away, D. 8S. taking his gun-bearer, Abdi, with him, and I my 
Midgan boy Mahomed. The track led us through patches of high sun-bleach- 
ed grass with intervals of bare, sandy ground between, and an occasional 
mimosa bush,and we had not gone more than half a mile when Mahomed 
suddenly stopped and pointed ahead, and at the same moment I saw the 
lion peering at us over a high tussock of grass, with his head and left 
shoulder exposed, about 50 yards away. 1 was on the left of the Midgan and 
could haye had aneasy shot, but Donaldson-Smith could not see him dis- 
tinctly from where he was, and had to shuffle behind Mahomed, who was 
between us, towards me, before he could get a clear view of him, He had 
just done so, and was raising his rifle to fire, when the Midgan, who had 
hitherto remained in a sqatting position, for sume unaccountable reason 
stood up r‘ght in front of him, obliging him to bring the rifle down «gain ; 
and at the same instant the lion whisked round and vanished like magic 
in the grass. Wewere both too disgusted for words, On going up to the 
spot where we had seen him, we found no sign of the carcase of my 
lioness, but by following up the original trail we soon discovered it under 
a dense bush among the high grass, about 100 yards away. The lion had 
evidently heard us and had left his gruesome meal to come and see who the 
