on Cage Birds in Sierra Leone.



213



frequently do, in their armies of countless thousands, had found

the poor bird, killed him and either eaten or carried away almost

the whole of him. My black boy said he was all right when he

went to sleep at night, but in the morning pigeon and ants had

disappeared, the latter leaving their unmistakable track behind.

Later on I made some experiments with live frogs to see how

quickly ants could dispose of them, and was astonished to see

how short a time they took; indeed there is a story in Sierra

Leone of a drunken man in a prison cell being killed and

disposed of by ants in one night.


However, the next pigeon which the natives brought

along was a most gorgeous one, a Green Fruit Pigeon ( Vinago

sharper). My boy told me he w'ould only eat Christmas seed,

whatever that was, but when I instructed him to obtain some he

quickly informed me that he couldn’t, as it wasn’t the season.

So recourse was had to rice, but it was evident it was not

suitable, and by degrees this pigeon sickened and died, though I

obtained some Christmas seed towards the end. The natives

allege, and it appears to be a fact, that this Pigeon will never fly

to the ground, but will only w'alk to it down a twig, and will

even break a twig on purpose rather than fly to the ground.


I had not been many hours at Rotifunk before finding the

various trees in the compound were the resort of many hundreds

of hard-billed birds. With a butterfly net and a lantern at night

time my black boy and I could easily catch two kinds of

finch, small and large respectively ( Spermestes cucullata and

Avianresthes fringilloides). At one time over thirty of these

birds in a large tin lined cage, which a short time before had

been the home of a young leopard, came in very handy as diet

for two Owls. We could also sometimes catch a Fire-finch

{ Lagonosticta. minima) in an orange tree and occasionally we got

a Lime-bird ( Silagra brachyptera). My boy became very clever

at using the butterfly net, and the resultant catches always were

put in cages to wait till such time as coloured drawings could be

made of them.


One day a native brought along a little wicker cage, and

great was my delight in seeing it contained a large fierce but very



