GOLD COAST 209 
were crepuscular or nocturnal; I frequently saw their sloughed 
skins in bushes bordering the river but rarely saw a snake. No 
doubt many of the disused kingfisher holes were regularly used by 
them during the heat of the day. 
The riverside vegetation, sometimes referred to as gallery for- 
est, contained some interesting robin-chats and a very curious bird 
known as the Oriole Babbler. The English name for this is not a 
very fitting one, for, except that the Oriole Babbler has yellow and 
green in its plumage, it has little resemblance to any oriole and 1s 
even less like a typical babbler. It is not gregarious and therefore 
does not indulge in community babbling, but it has a variety of 
calls, the usual one being a whistle up and down the scale uttered 
in a quick lively manner. Other notes reminded me very much of 
those of certain bush-shrikes. The markings are rather unusual, 
for the head is black, with each feather laced with silver, while 
the upper parts are olive green and the under parts yellow, with a 
black breast-band. 
One day while trying to capture one of these rare birds I caught 
five weaver-birds that had flown into one of my nets in a creeper 
overhanging the water. Not requiring anything so common I re- 
leased them while standing in the canoe, but the last one, in its 
eagerness to escape, dashed down a bit too low, struck the water, 
and started flapping its wings rapidly in an endeavor to reach the 
shore. A second later there was a big splash but no further sign of 
the weaver-bird—a large fish had taken the luckless creature. 
I noticed that frogs were plentiful where the river widened out 
and was shallow, and from these places the croaking at night was 
tremendous, but along the deeper water there was an ominous 
silence. This alone, I think, indicated the presence of many carniv- 
orous fish. 
One day the Hausa Chief again arrived to see how we were 
getting on. A tall man, looking very dignified in his native robes, 
he addressed me in his own tongue—Hausa. One of his followers 
translated this into Twi, and another finally put it into English. 
The result, I fear, was merely an outline of what had been said by 
the Chief, and not a correct version at that. It ran: “The Chief says 
that as he hasn’t seen you since the last time he saw you, he has 
