Cometary protons picked up by the solar wind were detected by the high energy range spectrometer of the Giotto ion mass spectrometer starting at a cometocentric distance of ~12¿106 km. On the average, the density of cometary protons varied approximately as the inverse square of the cometocentric distance, reaching a value of 0.11 cm-3 just outside the bow shock. The data can be successfully fit to models that include substantial amounts of both slow (~1 km/s) and fast (≥8 km/s) H atoms beyond the bow shock. Large local variations in the density of picked-up protons can be explained on the basis of variations in the direction of the interplanetary magnetic field in upstream regions where pitch angle scattering was weak. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1989