ELMENTEITA IN FEBRUARY 
137 
A curious example of animal-cunning occurred on this 
march. Twice I walked on to a sleeping jackal, and on 
each occasion the animal, after running thirty or forty 
yards, sprang high in air, repeating the leap a few yards 
beyond, in apparent anticipation of the advent of a 
bullet! It was the more remarkable as these beasts are 
rarely shot at. There are in East Africa two species of 
jackal—the ordinary fox-like animal with white-tipped 
brush ( Canis aureus ), and the beautiful black-backed 
jackal ( C . mesomelas) with golden-spangled sides, and 
whose brush deepens to black at the end. Both species 
are equally abundant. I weighed three common jackals, 
two females 15 and 16|- lbs., one male 17|- lbs. 
A Night with Pachyderms 
Our immediate objective on Lake Elmenteita was to 
obtain specimens of the hippopotami which frequent 
that salt lake in some numbers. According to our 
information, these great amphibians, while spending the 
day in mid-water, approach the sweet-water rivers to 
drink at dusk, thus affording the chance of a shot. 
Our river, the Karriendoos, was quite a small stream, 
not so big as a Northumbrian burn, and towards evening 
we concealed ourselves on the point of a rush-clad spit 
that commanded its entrance. Several hippos were in 
view in the open water outside and a wondrous scene in 
tropical wild-life unfolded as evening advanced. Skeins 
of huge spur-winged geese, black and white, flighted in 
to drink the sweet water; ducks also of varied kinds— 
the equatorial representative of our mallard ( Anas 
undulata), together with pintail and shoveler, familiar 
in Europe. There were teal of two kinds, garganeys 
and pochard (erythrophthalma) —all these flew or swam 
within half-gunshot of our hide. Outside, among the 
rushes, swam groups of the singular Maccoa pochard 
(Erismatura maccoa ), ducks whose plumage is rather 
a glossy filament like that of grebes, and with long stiff 
cormorant dike tails which the drakes often carry bolt 
upright. On the foreshores waded sacred and glossy 
