429 BIRDS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
packed about, and around, and upon each other, that with the 
additional weight which a stormy wet day supplied, the trees gave 
way and fell to the earth, and an awful smash of eggs and young 
birds bore witness to the melancholy result. However, this ill wind 
proved to be a windfall for the ants, as they had a great feast upon 
the broken eggs and young ones. On another occasion these birds, 
for some reason or other, were too late in commencing their nests, 
and it so happened that before their young were fully fledged the 
locusts began to leave the neighbourhood, most of the ‘ voet 
gangers’ had thrown off their working jackets and resumed the 
‘imago’ state. It was easy work for the birds to follow them at 
first and bring back a sufficient supply of food to their nests, but as 
the locusts day after day winged their flight towards the interior, 
they found the task a difficult one; still for some days they succeeded 
in keeping their young alive, but the winged swarms of locusts 
travelled so fast that the birds were beaten in this great struggle for 
life, and were compelled to abandon their nests, leaving the half- 
fledged young ones to their sad fate; and to save themselves from a 
similar one, flew after the locust swarms that were leaving the 
colony. It seems unnatural for any animal to desert its young, and 
Ihave frequently seen birds risk their lives for the sake of their 
nests, but in the above-mentioned case, no blame nor want of natural 
affection could be attached to the locust birds—they did all that they 
possibly could under the circumstances—for, excepting the locust 
swarms, no other source remained by which so great a multitude 
could be supplied with food.’’* 
“In the Transvaal,” writes Mr. Ayres, “they are only found at 
Potchefstroom during the winter months, from April to November, 
when they occur both singly and also in companies ranging in 
number from three up to a hundred or more.” Mr. T. E. Buckley 
shot a male in Bamangwato on the 28th of August, 1873, which was 
then beginning to get the bare throat; it was also obtained by the 
late Mr. Frank Oates on the Tati River, and as high as the Rama- 
queban. It extends all along the east coast of the continent into 
North-eastern Africa. 
In South-west Africa the Wattled Starlings appear in Damara 
* We have heard of a similar incident occurring with the other locust bird, 
Glareola nordmanni, when a whole hill-side covered with nests containing young 
birds was deserted. 
