XIV 
PIGS, CATTLE, OSTRICHES 
i43 
delicacy, even as is the oyster to the gourmet. 
Curiously enough, so shrewd an observer as Mr. Stigand 
comments in his book, “To Abyssinia through an 
Unknown Land,” on the peculiarity of finding an 
ostrich recently killed by a lion, since it is extremely 
rarely that they will touch them. Had he been an 
ostrich breeder he would have found it far from 
unusual. The length to which lions and leopards will 
go to obtain a good tuck in among young ostriches is 
extraordinary. Last year, two breeders completed an 
ostrich enclosure which they felt was so secure that 
they might rest happy in their beds. The boma was 
perhaps 40 yards square, and consisted of huge posts 
some lo ft. high and was bound together by strands of 
barbed wire within and without at intervals of three or 
four inches. In all there were more than seven miles 
of barbed wire around it. Outside, again, was a fence 
of thorns, in itself almost impenetrable. Nevertheless, 
the settlers’ confidence was misplaced. One morning 
they were roused with the unwelcome tidings that five 
lions had visited the enclosure, had slain fifty odd out 
of seventy ostriches contained therein, and had then 
decamped—all save one, who was too swollen to retreat 
through the gap by which he entered. The captive 
dispatched, an inspection was made, and the fury with 
which the lions had made their attack on the boma was 
evidenced by the blood and fur strewn about. The 
gap had been formed by literally tearing with teeth and 
claws the wire from its supports and eventually forcing 
open a narrow hole. Nor was this all. Next morning 
the boy who brought the early tea remarked, “Tea, 
sir, and another big lion in the boma! ” Running out 
in pyjamas, another fine male was found unable to 
locate the means of egress and was shot, which experi- 
