8 
THE LIVING ANIMALS OF THE WORLD 
railway-guard, of an old male who charged a goods-train coming at full speed down a steep 
gradient. The bird, as soon as he caught sight of the train, at once got on the line, “ and 
advanced fearlessly to fight the monster. As the screeching engine approached, he rushed 
at it from straight in front, hissing angrily, and kicked. He was cut to pieces the next 
moment.” 
The Bedouin tribes hunt the ostrich on dromedaries, so also do the natives of Somaliland, 
and when near enough shoot it with poisoned arrows. In the Sahara, Canon Tristram tells us 
it is ridden down on horseback, a method of capture which the Sahara sportsman regards as 
the greatest feat of hunting. 
“The Bushmen,” says Mr. Harting, “like the Somalis, kill the ostrich with poisoned 
arrows, or catch it very cleverly in pit-falls or with the lasso, and the Sukurieh and 
Hadendawah tribes likewise use the lasso, with which the bird, when once fairly caught, is 
strangled. ... A favourite plan is to wait for the birds in a place of concealment, as near as 
Photo by Schrotder'^ 
[Zurich 
A GROUP OF COCK OSTRICHES 
JVbre t/ie conspicuous tail in these birds ; it is wanting in other members of the Ostrich Tnhe 
possible to the pools to which they come for water, and then, with a gun loaded with swan- 
shot, to fire at their necks as they stoop to drink, when perhaps half a dozen are laid lo\w 
at once. . . . Another plan to which the Bushman often resorts is simpler still. Having 
found an ostrich's nest, he removes all the eggs, and, ensconcing himself in the nest, quietly 
awaits the return of the bird, which he shoots with a poisoned arrow before it has time tO' 
recover from its surprise at finding him there instead of the eggs. ... In Senaar the Abu-Rof 
bring it down by throwing a curved flat stick from 2 \ to 3 feet long, not unlike the Australian 
boomerang, and made of tough acacia-wood or hard zizyphus.” 
Mr. Arthur Glynn, of Leydenburg, gives a graphic description of an ostrich hunt, his quarry 
being a troop of twenty birds — “ on sighting which,” he tells us, “ we immediately gave chase, 
discovering directly afterwards that a single bull wildebeeste was among them. After a stiff 
gallop,” he says, “ of half a mile, we got within seventy yards of the troop ; so reining in, we- 
both dismounted and fired, bringing down one ostrich and the wildebeeste bull. . . . We quickly 
mounted and continued the pursuit, the ostriches never running for any distance in a direct 
