TO THE UASIN GISHU 
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the size of a white-tail deer, which lay close in the reed beds, 
or in hollows among the tall grass, and-usually offered rather 
difficult running shots or very long standing shots. Still 
prettier were the little oribi. These are grass antelopes, 
frequenting much the same places as the duiker and stein- 
buck and'not much larger. Where the grass was long they 
would lie close, with neck flat along the ground, and dart 
off when nearly stepped on, with a pig-like rush like that 
of a reedbuck or duiker in similar thick cover. But where 
the grass was short, and especially where it was burned, 
they did not trust to lying down and hiding; on the con¬ 
trary, in such places they were conspicuous little creatures, 
and trusted to their speed and alert vigilance for their 
safety. They run very fast, with great bounds, and when 
they stand—usually at a hundred and fifty or two hundred 
yards—they face the hunter, the forward-thrown ears be¬ 
ing the most noticeable thing about them. We found that 
each oribi bagged cost us an unpleasantly large number of 
cartridges. 
One day we found where a large party of hyenas had 
established their day lairs in the wet seclusion of some reed 
beds. We beat through these reedbeds, and, in the words 
once used by an old plains friend in describing the be¬ 
havior of a family of black bears under similar circum¬ 
stances, the hyenas ^Tame bilin’ out.^’ As they bolted 
Kermit shot one and I another; his bit savagely at a stick 
with which one of the gun-bearers poked it. It is difficult 
at first glance to tell the sex of a hyena, and our followers 
stoutly upheld the wide-spread African belief that they are 
bi-sexual, being male or female as they choose. A wounded 
or trapped hyena will of course bite if seized, but shows 
