82 NATURE AND SPORT IN SOUTH AFRICA 



ment of the rains (November or December), and 

 migrates as the season becomes more advanced. 

 C. J. Andersson states that the bird arrives in 

 Damaraland in a moulting condition, or when about 

 to change its plumage, and for this reason, on its 

 first arrival, keeps exclusively to covert. Later on it 

 certainly becomes distributed in more open country. 



As I have said, the violet-winged courser is no- 

 where common in South Africa. During fifteen 

 months spent north of the Yaal river, in 1890-91, 

 during which I traversed a very large extent of 

 country, and was constantly on the move, I only 

 saw it in one district of the South Kalahari portion 

 of British Bechuanaland. It was towards the end 

 of the rains, in the month of April, when travelling 

 with a wagon to Morokweng, that I first came 

 across these birds. We had outspanned at Kudunque, 

 between Mosita and Morokweng, where the true 

 Kalahari country may be said to begin. This is a 

 very dry trek, and we were delighted to find a good 

 pool of rain-water in a big limestone basin. 



Kudunque is a shallow depression or " laagte," as 

 the Boers call it, which runs nearly due north to 

 the Molopo river, or rather course, for hereabouts the 

 Molopo is nothing bat a sand-bed, quite destitute of 

 water. Close to the water-pit at Kudunque, which 

 is quite dry during the winter months (May to 

 November), is a large brack-pan, whither heavy 



