106 Mr. W. L. Sclater— Ornithological 



type, and cannot be confounded with any others of the 

 same size. 



Dimensions : 41 x 29 ; 41x29-1; 41'4 x 28*5; 41'4x29 

 mm. 



Weights : 89 ; 92-5 ; 93 j 97 centigrams. 



Lenhofda, Sweden, 

 December 1st, 1904. 



IX. — An Ornithological Excursion to the Victoria Falls 

 of the Zambesi. By W. L. Sclater, Director of the 

 So nth- African Museum. 



The receut opening of the railway between Bulawayo and 

 the Victoria Falls on the Upper Zambesi has rendered a visit 

 to what is, without doubt, the most remarkable natural 

 phenomenon in Africa, if not in the whole w r orid, an easy 

 matter, and one which can be undertaken in comparative 

 comfort and at a fairly reasonable cost. 



Having just completed the manuscript of the fourth and 

 last volume of the ' Birds of South Africa/ I felt that I was 

 entitled to take a short holiday, and decided to visit the 

 Falls, and at the same time to make some additions to the 

 collections of the South- African Museum from that district. 



As is well known, the first European who saw the great 

 Falls of the Zambesi was David Livingstone. On his fourth 

 journey from the south in 1852 he tii^t met the upper waters 

 of the Zambesi at Sesheke, some sixty miles above them. 

 Thence he went right through to the Atlantic coast of 

 Angola at St. Paul de Loanda. Returning from Loanda in 

 1855 he left Sesheke on the 3rd of November to descend the 

 Zambesi to its mouth. He stopped at the Island of Kalai, 

 about thirty miles down the river, and from this point made 

 an excursion still further down in a small canoe. He landed 

 on an island at the lip of the fall itself, where he made a 

 little garden and carved his initials on the trunk of a tree. 

 On this island, now called " Livingstone Island/' can still 

 be seen the identical tree, and indistinct traces of the " L " 

 which he carved on it in November, 1855 *. 



* See his ' Missionary Travels,' p. 525. 



