Birds of the Lydenburg District. 191 



middle of October. I met with the present species near the 

 Lower Oxus, and in the undulating thinly bush-covered sand- 

 wastes, as also in the densely bush-covered alluvial marly- 

 clay country, never very far from water, round which they 

 fly after sunset. On the Lower Syr ( Jaxartes) it was rarer ; 

 and here I first noticed it, — and received specimens also from 

 Krasnovodsk, on the east coast of the Caspian.^' 

 [To be continued.] 



XIX. — Ornithological Notes made during Trips between Bloeni' 

 fontein and the Lydenburg Gold-fields. By F. A. Barratt. 



(Plate IV.) 



On my first journey I started from Kingwilliamstown in the 

 Cape colony, having well stocked my light waggon with 

 all the ammunition and apparatus necessary for collecting, 

 not forgetting my " Layard ;" but I did not keep any parti- 

 cular record of the birds obtained in the district, and I pro- 

 pose to treat in the present paper only of the birds observed 

 in the northern part of the Orange Free State, from Bloem- 

 fontein onwards ; my notes made during sundry expeditions 

 in the Transvaal Republic will also be embodied. 



Leaving the capital in the month of February, we had 

 scarcely proceeded two or three miles, when we came upon 

 about a dozen Stanley Cranes [Anthropoides stanleyanus) 

 sporting and dancing j to their considerable astonishment I 

 dropped a bullet among them, which made them stalk off 

 majestically, shaking their beautiful long plumes as they went. 

 About four miles further on we came to Rhinoceros Spruit, 

 where large numbers of Coursers were gliding, as it were, 

 in and out of the stunted herbage ; whilst Plovers [Hoplopterus 

 coronatus) were wheeling about in every direction, uttering 

 their harsh cries. Thence we went to the Modder river ; 

 and in the vleys running parallel with the stream were to be 

 seen the pretty Weaverbirds {Euplectes taha) bobbing up and 

 down like a golden ball, and Cher a progne with its gracefully 

 sweeping tail. It was in the bush near the above-named river 

 that I first shot the Great Spotted Cuckoo {Coccystes glan- 



