HOUW HOEK AND STANFORD lOQ 



intruders of their own species away, should they make 

 their appearance in the neighbourhood. 



We saw one example of the Snake- Bird on the 

 Klein River ; this bird feeds on fish and dives freely ; 

 I have never seen it in the water, but it is said to swim 

 very low, showing nothing but its head and neck, and 

 might consequently be easily mistaken for a snake. 

 The bird that we saw was standing on a rail which 

 projected over the river, apparently watching for fish. 



Our stay in this neighbourhood was not productive 

 of many photographs ; we still failed to discover the 

 breeding places of various birds that we were anxious 

 to meet with, indeed hardly anyone in the Colony 

 seemed to know much about, or take any interest in 

 the birds, while those who could ^ive us reliable 

 information might certainly be counted on the fingers 

 of two hands. 



The only information we could count on was that 

 some particular bird we happened to be enquiring about 

 never nested in the neighbourhood of the place where 

 we were at the time, but as soon as we arrived at the 

 spot where it was supposed to nest we found that it 

 was just a little further on, or perhaps in the very place 

 we had previously been to. The poor birds were thus 

 driven mercilessly about from river to river and 

 from vley to vley, until they were banished, by a man 

 who was largely interested in the posting business, to a 

 lake called Brandvley, some two days' journey by cart, 

 where the water attains a temperature of a hundred and 

 forty-five degrees ! 



The fact is that very many of these water birds 

 breed in large colonies on some of the more important 



