522 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1914. 
But if I attempt to describe even in outline what the drought 
has done to the birds of Waterberg, I should need an entire issue 
of the Journal. However interesting the subject may be, it cannot 
be gone into on this occasion. 
In the presence of this scene of death and desolation it is difficult 
to cultivate a spirit of optimism. It does not seem possible that 
enough water can ever again fall to damp or even to cool this parched 
and cracked earth and to fill these moats of burning sand. Optimism 
suggests that it is only the great tidal swing of nature exemplified: 
that we are at the lowest point of the periphery, and that from now 
onward it must rise steadily up to better things. But at the back 
of one’s mind remains the pessimistic conviction, apparently borne 
out by every fact observed, that the oscillations of the pendulum are 
gradually lessening round the dead point. 
