2 53 Jounia/ of Travel and Natural History 



a much deeper colour, with the white spots larger and more conspicuous. They 

 are good layers, and rear their young much in the same way as our [so-called] 

 pheasants do. . . . Sir Walter Currie has upwards of a hundred of these 

 beautiful birds upon his property (Oatlands) at Graham's Town ; they are 

 thorough-bred South African ones." 



It is not mentioned that the two species ever interbreed, even 

 when kept together. One more remarkable bird we will bring to 

 notice, the Podica mosambicana, which Mr Layard arranges with 

 the grebes (Podiceps), whereas the true affinity of this genus is 

 decidedly with the gallinules. He also follows the old system of 

 approximating the jacanas (Parridse) to the Rallidte, and su- 

 bordinating them to the Palamedeadae. The last we consider to 

 be modified geese, not distantly akin to the spur-winged geese 

 (Plectropterus), and especially to the semi-palmate goose (Anseranas 

 melanoleuca) of Australia ; while the Parridse we consider to be 

 allied neither to the Rallidse nor to the Palamedeadae. We 

 cannot perceive that they approximate the Rallidas in any 

 particular whatsoever. We have watched the Malayan Podica 

 personata through a glass, upon an alluvial island in the Great 

 Tenasserim River, and are satisfied that it is a pre-eminently 

 diving form of coot or gallinule, as the details of its external 

 structure intimate. Of the South African P. mosambicana, Mr 

 Layard shot at two without obtaining them, from their efficient 

 diving capabilities ; and of one of them he remarks — " At first I 

 took it for a coot, but as the bird dropped its legs, I saw the feet 

 were bright orange, and apparently weblied [/.r., scalloped]; other 

 peculiarities also convinced me that I had a stranger before me." 

 We have not handled the Podica, nor the allied genus Heliornis, 

 fresh, but feel no doubt that their anatomy will be found to remove 

 them altogether from the grebes to associate them with the coots 

 and gallinules. The eggs and covering of the chicks should do 

 the same, as these are most diverse in the two families in question. 



The more prominent characteristics of the South African avi- 

 fauna may now be very briefly indicated. As many as seven 

 species of Vulturidae are enumerated, inclusive of the African 

 lammergeyer (Gypaetus meridionalis) ; about forty authentic species 

 of FalconidcTe, inclusive of the secretary-bird, which M. Layard 

 refers to this family ; and ten species of Strigidae or owls, or in all 

 fifty-seven species of Raptores, a few of which are very rare or 

 barely admissible. The splendid Aquila bellicosa, distinctly 

 referred by our author to Spizaetus, is very scarce in the colony. 



