. On safari : big game hunting in British East Africa, with studies in bird-life . ry failed. Both had similar an hour of sundown that first evenino- we ranright into the buffalo close by—not fifty yards away, inthe open. But nothing even then was visible, and thebeasts stampeded, snorting, in the dark. My own diarythat night records : Lighter rains later, but still inkydark. Could see nothing, so returned to camp at ten,and had a pint of Giesler(!). At 2 , thick, overcast A TINY WOODPECKER. Olive-green above, gi-ey below,occiput bright crimson. THE MAU FOREST 197 and rai
. On safari : big game hunting in British East Africa, with studies in bird-life . ry failed. Both had similar an hour of sundown that first evenino- we ranright into the buffalo close by—not fifty yards away, inthe open. But nothing even then was visible, and thebeasts stampeded, snorting, in the dark. My own diarythat night records : Lighter rains later, but still inkydark. Could see nothing, so returned to camp at ten,and had a pint of Giesler(!). At 2 , thick, overcast A TINY WOODPECKER. Olive-green above, gi-ey below,occiput bright crimson. THE MAU FOREST 197 and raining—spoor showed that a big herd had passedthe bluff close by, apparently only a few minutes before ;followed on and amiin got close in—could hear themgrazing and grunting, apparently w^ithin fifty to eightyyards ; but no chance to see, much less shoot. Towardsdaw^n fell in again, a herd of seven; but ere we over-hauled them the beasts had gained the shelteringforest. That evening at sundown, a low booming call closeby revived hope—though I feared it must be cows. No !. GREAT GROrXD-HORXBILLS, ALARMED BY A PASSING EAGLE. these were great ground-hornbills (Bucorvus cafer), bigbirds like turkeys, with red pendent wattles, struttingtowards us. It was curious to observe how they squattedlow to earth when a pair of Bateleur eagles passed over-head on their way to roost. A few minutes later night-jars appeared in splendid aerial gyrations. These birds((7. frenatus) kept up their churring all night, andat dawn our common British willow-wren was in half-sonsc on March 6—the same feeble ditty with which hebids us farewell at home before finally quitting Britishshores towards the end of August. It irks to dwell on failures ; but there occurred duringthis period at least six occasions when one turn of 198 ON SAFARI luck, one half-liour of bright moonliglit, might havechanged all and given us what we sought. No such aidoccurred: it was j)erhaps kismet once more, and thistime on
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