Chrasional ^\)tes. 123 



of the district. The officers on duty, however, refused to 

 have anything to do with it, and, as the Doctor put it, ho 

 did not blame them. ' I was/ he said, ' a distinctly dis- 

 reputable-looking individual, with long hair, a big bushy 

 white beard, and terribly stained and dilapidated clothes.' 

 So they went on in the boat, and after a somewhat stormy 

 passage landed at Allen & Mack's Wharf^ Delagoa Bay, 

 whence, after being photographed and taking a day's rest, 

 they came home to Pretoria after an absence of three 

 months. 



" ' The trip,' said Dr. Turner, ' has done me an enormous 

 amount of good, and I can strongly recommend it to elderly 

 gentlemen suffering from obesity. They may depend upon 

 it that when they have gone through the course they will 

 have, as I have had, to reclothe themselves.' " 



(6) Mr. C. Harvey, of the Trout Hatchery, Potchefstroom, 

 Transvaal, writes : — 



" In March 1906 a Tick Bird (Bupha(/a africana) was seen 

 •doing an ordinary Yellow Masked Weaver {Hyphantornis 

 velatus mariquensis) to death in a most excitable manner. 

 Tick Birds have been exceedingly numerous this year in the 

 Potchefstroom District ; I have seen as many as twenty-five 

 in the Market Square at one time. 



" During the last two months I have shot about twenty 

 Kingfishers of three different species in my pond enclosure 

 on the Mooi River. 



" Not so long ago I saw one of the Giant Kingfishers 

 {Ceryle maxima) — Groot Ijsvogel — making off with a 6-inch 

 trout. In his fright he dropped the fish, which I secured and 

 returned to its pond alive and well after despatching the bird 

 with a charge of No. 6." 



\_Note. — When at the Potchefstroom Hatchery, in No- 

 vember last, Mr. Harvey showed us some of the Kingfishers 

 he had shot, which were Ceryle rudis (Pied Kingfisher) and 

 Corytlwrnis cyanostigma (Malachite Kingfisher). — Edd.] 



