70 Mr. F. Thorn sen on 



watclicd, whore they went to roost ; next morninfr all re- 

 turned to their voetganger feed and none seemed to be the 

 worse for it ; nor could any dead ones be found. The larger 

 European Turtle-Dove has been reported as eating small 

 snails in Europe. I have seen some of the Ring-Doves in 

 Oberholzer's kloof eating voetgangers in November last. 



The Blue Crane. {Tetrapteryx paradisea^ 

 All over South Africa the Blue Crane, or Stanley Crane 

 (7'. paradisea), is found in pairs or small flocks. Most 

 travellers know this stately bird with its pearl-grey plumage 

 and long feathers. How often one hears, on a warm Spring 

 day, the plaintive cry of this Crane flying high overhead, a 

 mere speck to the eye, or more often nothing but the flash of 

 the underside of the wings in the morning sun can be noticed 

 as the eye looks where the strange call came from. This 

 Crane is a great locust-eater, but, as far as the Transvaal is 

 ccncerned, it does not account for much ; its numbers are 

 too small. 



Reichenow calls this bird Anthropoides paradisea, the 

 Large Locust Bird of the Dutch inhabitants (" De groote 

 Springhaan-vogel"). I have never heard, in all my travel- 

 lings, any Dutch farmer call the Blue Crane " de groote 

 Springhaan-vogel ; " if he speaks about a Large Locust Bird 

 he invariably means the European Stork (Ciconia alba). I 

 have been informed by many people that this Crane does a 

 lot of good in digging up locust-eggs. 



The Swallow. 



One afternoon late in November, while I was travelling on 

 the road from the Lead-mine to Mabalstadt, my attention was 

 drawn to perhaps a hundred small birds flying round one 

 spot on the veldt. Coming near I recognized these birds to 

 be the White-throated Swallow (Ilirimdo albigidaris) ; they 

 had collected a little swarm of small voetgangers in some 

 long grass and were circling round these, picking the insects 

 off the grass as they darted past. The only other instance I 

 can record was at Nylstroom. In January 1905 the voet- 

 gangers were moving over the waggon-road, hopping in their 



