28 THE ODYSSEY OF AN ANIMAL COLLECTOR 
I had soon rigged up an outhouse as a bird-room and a car- 
penter’s shop for making my traveling boxes. One of my first 
captures was a Heuglin’s Robin-chat, a sprightly bird of the chat 
tribe that lives in thickets. 
It has been so often repeated that Africa has no songbirds that 
I cannot do better than quote a description by R. E. Moreau—an 
authority on East African birds—of this bird’s song: 
“cc 
. 
. in its power to stir the listener this robin-chat is not second 
even to the nightingale. Not only does the crescendo of the song rouse 
the listener’s expectancy to the highest pitch, but most of the bird’s 
notes down to the smallest and lightest are charged with passion.” 
Another species of the same genus, the Natal Robin-chat 
(Cossypha natalensis), was also here, but in different situations, 
and I was not long in capturing a specimen. This bird is of strik- 
ing appearance with its orange head, blue-gray upper parts, and 
orange-red under parts, and though it lacks the song of some 
of the other robin-chats, it has a variety of pleasing call-notes and 
a soft whistle. This one became particularly tame, and when I 
gave him his breakfast he always cocked his head on one side, 
inspected it, and then poured out his whistling notes for fully a 
minute before attempting to satisfy his hunger. This was a daily 
performance, and one morning I called Krantz to witness this 
wild-caught bird refusing to eat even the most tempting tit-bit 
until he had sung his little song of thanks. Krantz, although 
fallen so low in his standards of living, came of good stock, and 
being basically a gentleman was most sentimental over things 
which touched his finer instincts. He was incredulous when I 
brought him to the door of my bird-room, thinking perhaps that 
I was pulling his leg, but after I had fed the robin-chat and we 
had remained silent for a few moments, the sweetest call-notes 
rang out and continued even longer than usual. When this was 
over, I turned to Krantz for his approval, but the old man was 
overcome with emotion and was wiping the tears from his eyes. 
In his later life things were but few 
That touched his finer senses, 
But now his very soul was roused 
By Cossypha natalensis. 
