10 Mr. F. 0. Noome on Birds 



homestead. A few hundred yards away was a solitary thorn- 

 tree in which five African Rooks (^Ileterocorax capensls) liad 

 taken up their quarters for the nitiht, evidently not caring to 

 mix with the Pied species, for as I startled the latter from 

 the syringa-trees they Hew to the thorn-tree and drove away 

 the former, who seemed to he afraid of them. Next day we 

 completed our journey, getting into the ordinary " bushveld" 

 type of country after crossing the Hout River, and stretching 

 continuously right up to the Blaauwherg. A few solitary 

 White Storks {Ciconia clcon.la) were noticed here and there 

 searching for grasshoppers, but nothing else worth noting 

 was seen. 



A fortnight was spent at Blaauwberg, during which I 

 found the intense heat and drought very trying ; water was 

 so scarce that there was barely sufficient for cooking 

 purposes, and the mules had to be sent to the Brak River, 

 a distance of about three miles from camp, where a few 

 stagnant pools of water were still to be found. I think that 

 birds luid to fly to these pools in the Brak River for water, 

 as the only other i)]aces where they could drink were a long 

 way from the place where I found them to be most numerous. 



Blaauwberg is a mountain forming part of a series of 

 ranges lying about midway between Pietersburg and the 

 Limpopo River, and about 70 miles N.W. from the former. 

 It rises to a height of GOOO feet or more above the sea-level, 

 bare of vegetation, the top a mass of hard rocks and often 

 hidden in clouds of n\i>f ; below tlie rocks is a ]ilateau covered 

 with dense forest, and leading down from the plateau are 

 numerous kloofs also thickly wooded, whil<» Ihe ridges separat- 

 ing the kloofs and tln^ base of tlu^ bill were only sparingly 

 chtthed with irca^. The kloofs are ihained by watercourses, 

 which were dry at the time of my visit on account of the severe 

 drought, ami af tlirii- bases, where they opened out into the 

 fl.its below, were long stretches of tall, dens(dy foliaged 

 niimosa-thorti, wild (ig, and "nianda" trees ; the two latter 

 kinds were iti f'liiit, and. no doul)t, the reason why 1 found 

 so many birds in the vicinity. It was amongst these trees 

 that I did tiie greater part of my collecting. 



