CHAPTER XXX 
GAME BIRDS FOR SPORT AND FOR THE POT 
Although big game shooting may provide the finer 
sport, and is, of course, the great inducement which 
attracts travellers and tourist sportsmen to the 
Protectorate, perhaps bird-shooting gives to the farmer 
and settler a more continuous pleasure. The shooting 
of the commoner plain-dwelling antelope soon tends to 
become more pain than pleasure, while the shooting of 
the more dangerous kinds of game is too exciting and 
too strenuous to give the relaxation required for a 
short holiday from hard work. British East Africa is 
very well off as regards variety of game-birds and 
fairly so as regards quantity. Unfortunately, the 
quality of the sport that they provide is not quite so 
great as might be wished. The following are the 
varieties which for our purpose may be described as 
gamebirds : Bustards, guinea-fowl, francolin—usually 
called, though quite incorrectly, partridge—quail, snipe, 
ducks, sand-grouse, and pigeons. 
Of these the ducks, snipe, and bustards perhaps 
provide the best food, and the sandgrouse and pigeons 
the best sport. 
Of sandgrouse we have four varieties : the pintailed, 
the bridled, the chestnut-vented, and the close-barred, 
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