210 THE ODYSSEY OF AN ANIMAL COLLECTOR 
come to see you again”! I made a suitable reply of welcome, but 
what it was like by the time it reached the Chief, I shudder to 
think. 
He was very interested in our menagerie and asked if I caught 
my cobra by magic! When he left he asked if we would care to 
attend a native dance. We accepted, and a few days later the affair 
was arranged in our honor. The afternoon was hot and the bare 
ground where the dance was held was dry and dusty. The dancers 
were mainly women and the dance consisted of a rather monoto- 
nous shuffling of feet, which made the dust fly and the air even 
more oppressive. The sound of tom-toms to a native are as the 
pipes to a Scot, stirring the emotions and warding off fatigue. The 
dancing was continuous and as time went on the drummers were 
swept away by the soul-stirring rhythm of their own music. Sweat 
streamed down their faces as they thumped away with an ever- 
increasing tempo. After an hour of this we had had enough, and 
in any case our family of pets was needing attention, so we 
thanked the Chief and returned to our grass huts, but judging by 
the distant sound of tom-toms the dancing continued well into the 
night. 
Every afternoon in February a large flock of Carmine Bee-eaters 
arrived in the vicinity of the river and remained there for several 
hours, performing aerial acrobatics while catching flying insects; 
they often swooped down to the water, just touching it with their 
bills—presumably to catch flies, as I have never known bee-eaters 
to drink. They certainly do not in captivity. 
I have rarely seen any birds more attractive either in color or in 
flight than Carmine Bee-eaters. They are clothed in a garment of 
pale blue and red on the back, with a rosy-red breast and blue-and- 
black head. They are also among the largest of the African bee- 
eaters and have the central tail-feathers about seven inches long. In 
the dry season when grass fires are sweeping the country these 
birds are attracted long distances by the sight of the rising smoke, 
for they know that where there is a fire, there is a feast. Having 
captured a grasshopper, they usually make for somewhere to perch 
so that they can bang it hard with a sideways swing of the bill to 
insure killing it. This habit is continued in captivity even with 
artificial food, and they rarely eat a piece of meat without “killing” 
