Ostriches are even more difficult to stalk than giraffes, as they are mostly found out in the open, and unless the sportsman can get a bush sufficiently tall to prevent their seeing him over it, or can take advantage of the dry bed of a watercourse, should there be one near, it is almost hopeless to try to stalk them. They are, however, not difficult to drive, and I have twice succeeded in circumventing them in this way, once with Sir Robert Harvey, and another time when alone. Once I tried to approach a troop of five by using my imitation ostrich, the Bushman’s stratagem (with which I was so successful with _G. Grantii_), but failed so hopelessly--the birds at once detecting the fraud and never allowing me to get within 500 yards of them--that I never tried it again. The best day I ever had with these birds was when I came across three, which I saw from a long way off, feeding amongst some small scattered bushes on a slope in undulating ground. By taking advantage of the low ground on the other side of the undulation, I succeeded, after a long and painful crawl, in getting up to a bush near the top. Here I could see the long neck and head of one of them over the brow, and was pleased to notice that they had altered their position and were feeding in my direction. Sitting quite still, I waited until they were within seventy yards of me, and got two of them with a right and left shot. The other one bolted down the slope of the hill away from me and disappeared for a few seconds, but apparently lost its head; for on standing up I saw it coming back; as it had not seen me, I stooped down behind the bush, and when it raced past about seventy or eighty yards off, with head held back and wings extended, I knocked it over. [Illustration: 1 C. Harveyi. 2 G. Petersi. 3 N. montanus. 4 C. bohor.] CHAPTER XVI ANTELOPES BY F. J. JACKSON