Page:In brightest Africa.djvu/118

 CHAPTER V

LEOPARDS AND RHINOS

There is a general belief firmly fixed in the popular mind by constant repetition that the ostrich is a very stupid bird. A man might well expect easy hunting of a bird that tried to hide by the traditional method of sticking its head in the sand. But I found that the ostrich, like other African animals, did not always realize its obligation to tradition or abide by the rules set down for its behaviour. I went a long way into the waterless desert of Somaliland after ostriches. We were just across the Haud and were camped in a "tug" or dry stream bed where by digging we could get water for our sixty men and the camels. During two days of hunting in the dry bush of this desert I had seen many ostriches, but none of them had put its head into the ground and left its big black-and-white plumed body for me to shoot at. On the contrary, in this my first experience with them I found them exceedingly wary. They kept their bodies hidden behind the bush. Only their heads were exposed, each head only about large enough to carry a pair of very keen eyes and much too small to serve as a target at the distance that they maintained. As a result of being continually outwitted by them for