38 Southern Nigeria : its Natural History, S-c. [ 



Vict. Nat. 

 Vol. XXX 



active, green, banded tree-snake. In the lecturer's experience 

 of these Nigerian snakes he never saw any of them show signs 

 of anger or heard them hiss — a striking contrast, as remarked, 

 to the habit of Austrahan snakes. Tortoises are fairly 

 numerous. Great land-snails, with shells over six inches long, 

 are plentiful, and, with numerous smaller kinds, are highly 

 relished as food by the natives. The insect world is intensely 

 interesting. Centipedes and brown scorpions are common, and 

 in some districts there are great black scorpions upwards of 

 six inches long. Winged insects are in myriads. The most 

 annoying are mosquitoes, sand-fiies, and "sweat flies" (species 

 of bees ?). The most striking beetles are the great irawo, the 

 elephant, the " fire-fly," and the excrement beetles. Other 

 interesting forms are wasps and hornets. Among the ants 

 the most important are the wonderful driver, the forager, and 

 the black and the yellow tree-ants. Termites exist in great 

 numbers, both the mound-building kinds and the ordinary 

 " white ants." The commonest birds are vultures, fish-eagles, 

 hawks, hornbills, owls, grey parrots, partridges, francolins, 

 quail, guinea-fowl, pigeons, doves, weaver-birds, cormorants, 

 plovers, herons, and sandpipers. The water-loving birds are 

 not nearly as plentiful as might be expected. The principal 

 tribes are the Ibo, Yoruba, Sobo, Ibibio, Bini, Ijaw, Ekoi, and 

 Munshi. Among wandering peoples are Hausa traders and 

 pastoral Fulani. Body-marking is practised by many tribes, 

 in some cases with artistic results, in others with quite the 

 reverse. Pale negroes and albinos are not rare. Among the 

 principal occupations of the people are farming, hunting, fishing, 

 trading, cotton cloth making, and working in iron, leather, 

 and wood. In Yorubaland magnetic iron-ore mining and 

 smelting are still carried on, but the smelting of ores of 

 secondary origin in other districts has now ceased. Salt is 

 obtained by filtration and evaporation of brine from springs 

 in marine Cretaceous strata. Throughout the colony the 

 natives are chiefly pagans, but Christian missions have long 

 been at work in some districts, and have many converts. 

 Mohammedanism through Hausa teachers is spreading rapidly 

 among the Yorubas. Government schools have been established 

 in many districts, and in some places are voluntarily built and 

 partly maintained by the local natives. All the tribes have 

 innumerable fetishes and pagan shrines, and they are great 

 votaries of dancing and ceremonies. Trial by ordeal for witch- 

 craft, theft, and other offences is still secretly or openly 

 practised. Human skulls and other bones are displayed in 

 many places, sometimes as fetishes. The present natives of 

 the country are not its aborigines. Those were peo])le of the 

 Stone Age, and the lecturer made the first discovery in that part 



