48 THE ODYSSEY OF AN ANIMAL COLLECTOR 
suitable as bait. Its use is, of course, limited, for although it will 
deceive certain birds, it is useless for squirrels and galagos or any 
other fruit-eating mammals, as they are guided by smell rather 
than by sight. 
Artificial flowers, preferably red and of the tubular kind, are 
sometimes quite useful in deceiving nectar-feeding birds, though 
where sunbirds are concerned the flowers must look very real 
before being effective. 
As well as birds, we had collected a variety of small mammals, 
the most interesting of which were some Moholi Galagos. These 
are small nocturnal creatures with lovely fur and large eyes, which 
thrive in captivity on a diet of milk, fruit, and a few insects. They 
are related to lemurs and make delightful pets as long as they are 
not liberated in a room at night where there are canaries! Alas, if 
given the chance they become partly carnivorous. 
After much loss of sweat with few exciting adventures, we were 
ready to depart, and did so with no great regrets, though the 
collection—especially of water-birds—was excellent. 
The voyage home on the Union Castle boat was uneventful 
until we were nearing Britain, when one morning on uncovering 
the birds which were on deck I found feathers all over the place 
as if something had tried to attack them through the bars of the 
cages. I naturally suspected rats and informed the chief officer, 
who said no rat had ever been reported on board, and as it was 
an oil-burning ship he doubted if there were any. Anyway, he pro- 
duced a lot of traps, which I set, but the same thing happened 
the following night and one bird was injured, though nothing 
showed up in the traps. By this time I had got most of the crew 
worked up. The following night I inspected the place every half- 
hour with an electric-torch, and at about 11 p.m. saw two large 
eyes shining under the canvas covering. I knew at once that they 
were those of a galago, and that this was the villain of the piece. 
I caught him quickly and silently and put him back with his 
mates before anyone saw what was taking place. As he was one 
of a dozen I had not noticed his escape, especially as they always 
remained huddled together in a heap during the day. He must 
have been smaller than the rest and squeezed through an in- 
