120 PERSONAL NAJtRATIVE. 



purpuroptera, Chrysococcyx cupreus, and a ruticilline 

 bird, which I subsequently found to be undescribed, 

 my H. fuscicaudata, and in the evening I added 

 to these Palcsomis torqudta, also an addition to my 

 collection. 



Having provided my men with as many birds as they 

 (5ould possibly skin, we all started together the next 

 afternoon to look for rhinoceroses. We rode across the 

 undulating plain, cultivated in patches, and intersected 

 with ravines filled with thick bush, to the river, along 

 the banks of which there is a narrow belt of high forest, 

 with dense underwood of bushes. I had seen nothing so 

 luxuriant in Africa. So dense is the underwood that it 

 is only possible to creep through the tangled labyrinth of 

 roots and branches by the paths made by the rhinoceroses 

 which haunt these thickets. These animals retire into 

 the thickest parts during the heat of thfe day. In 

 particular spots, generally amongst high reeds, they 

 select a small space of ground, which they clear of 

 bushes, and these spots are well known to the natives as 

 " rhinoceros houses." 



In such a house, in the centre of a broader strip of 

 thicket than usual, the men who were with us reported 

 that two rhinoceroses, an old one and her cub, were 

 lying. The approved method of endeavouring to 

 shoot these animals is by walking silently into their 

 retreats, firing at them, and then taking refuge up a 

 tree. This, however, requires a degree of agility in tree- 

 climbing upon which we could not rely, and it is not 

 only dangerous, but, according to all the accounts we 



