46 THE ODYSSEY OF AN ANIMAL COLLECTOR 
as many snakes are when they have been in captivity a little while, 
but it surprised me to see this fellow calmly pick them up by the 
tail and put them one by one back in his loin-cloth. His price was 
rather high so I tried the customary bargaining, but he was much 
too independent and went on his way. I asked my boy why the 
man had not accepted my price as no one else in the place would 
buy live snakes. “Oh,” he said, “’e go cook ’em.’ 
Among our collection of water-birds were some specimens of 
the Jacana or Lily-trotter. This bird is plover-like in some respects 
and rail-like in others, and has a bare plate on the head like a coot. 
Its distinguishing features are its long legs, striking coloration— 
black, white, yellow, maroon and chestnut—and its remarkably 
large feet; the hind toe alone is three inches long. This is a pro- 
vision to support the bird while running over floating vegetation, 
such as water-lilies, etc., while in search of its natural food—seeds 
and foliage of certain aquatic plants, and aquatic insects. It was 
delightful to see them running over floating plants always near 
reeds where they could retreat for safety, and a feature of any 
large swamp in this area was their resounding cries. 
Besides the water-loving creatures we had a large variety of 
bush- or savanna-dwelling birds. Among these were flycatchers, 
sunbirds, and numerous waxbills, but perhaps the most interesting 
was a pair of Little Bee-eaters. I was watching these birds perched 
on an acacia tree one day, going through their usual acrobatics of 
occasionally darting in the air to capture a flying insect and 
returning to the tree, when one flew onto an open patch of ground 
and disappeared. After waiting some minutes for it to rise again— 
without result—I went to the spot and found several rat-holes, 
and then realized that this was a ground-nesting species, unlike 
most bee-eaters, which nest in holes in banks, and that it employs 
disused rat-holes for the purpose. 
As these birds in the wild state “hawk” all their food, it is a 
most difficult business teaching them to eat anything—even live 
insects—in captivity, and to accomplish the complete change- 
over about three weeks of perseverance and patience were neces- 
sary. 
Sometimes birds have to be tempted with very alluring bait 
before they will enter a trap, and this applies mostly, of course, 
