164 THE ODYSSEY OF AN ANIMAL COLLECTOR 
provides him with something to eat, which is all he wants, and 
as he cannot eat money, why should he walk twenty miles? 
One of the dangers of the untrained eye is the concealed pits 
which are placed on forest tracks. These are dug fairly deep and 
are covered lightly with branches, then sticks and leaves, and are 
cleverly concealed in this way. In the bottom of the pit sharp 
wooden spikes are driven into the ground, point upwards, so that 
any unsuspecting bulky animal walking along the track at night 
treads on the flimsy pit-covering, which collapses, and is impaled 
on the spikes below. These pits are a nuisance to European 
hunters, and have been the cause of many accidents. 
Being a specialist in the care of nectar-feeding birds, one of my 
great desires was to get a varied collection of the magnificent sun- 
birds of the Cameroons. But uppermost in my thoughts was the 
species aptly called the Superb Sunbird. This bird with its crown 
of metallic blue-green, its metallic green back, its throat and upper 
breast metallic violet, is a living gem. Even the natives, who clump 
the sunbirds in general under one name, recognize the outstand- 
ing brilliance of this species. They call it Njok Ezong. It is one 
of those elusive denizens of the great forest that have no regular 
feeding places, but crop up here and there spasmodically. Occa- 
sionally one can be seen in some native plantation in, or bordering, 
the forest, where it seeks the nectar in the pawpaw and banana 
flowers. This diet is supplemented with insects and spiders. The 
females are inconspicuous birds of an olivaceous color. 
The offer of a large reward failed to produce any Superb Sun- 
birds, although the schoolboys brought me several other species. 
However, I managed to get three males myself after finding a 
suitable place for catching them. These three represented many 
weeks of toil. The capture of these rare and elusive creatures 
put me on a high plane where the local boys were concerned, and 
they came to my bird-room to admire the Njok Etongs, and to 
inquire how I caught them. I pulled their legs unmercifully, re- 
ferring to the inability of the entire local population to produce 
one, whereas I had caught three single-handed in my spare time. 
I gave them the impression that it was too easy for words, though 
actually, as with the trapping of almost any rare bird of the 
