130 A BUFFALO HUNT [ch. vi 



young fawns of the kongoni seemed to have Httle fear 

 of a horseman, if he approached while they were lying 

 motionless on the ground ; but they would run from a 



man on foot. 



There were interesting birds, too. Close by the 

 woods at the river's edge we saw a big black ground 

 hornbill walking about, on the lookout for its usual 

 dinner of small snakes and lizards. Large Hocks of the 

 beautiful Kavirondo cranes stalked over the plains and 

 cultivated fields, or flew by with mournful, musical 

 clangour. But the most interesting birds we saw were 

 the black whydah finches. The female is a dull- 

 coloured, ordinary-looking bird, somewhat hke a female 

 bobolink. The male in his courtship dress is clad in a 

 uniform dark glossy suit, and his tail-feathers are almost 

 like some of those of a barnyard rooster, being over 

 twice as long as the rest of the bird, with a downward 

 curve at the tips. The females were generally found in 

 flocks, in which there would often be a goodly number 

 of males also, and when the flocks put on speed the 

 males tended to drop behind. The flocks were feed- 

 ing in Heatley's grain-fields, and he was threatening 

 veno-eance upon them. I was sorry, for the male birds 

 certainly have habits of peculiar interest. They were 

 not shy, although if we approached too near them in 

 their favourite haunts — the grassland adjoining the 

 papyrus beds — they would fly off and perch on the 

 tops of the papyrus stems. The long tail hampers the 

 bird in its flight, and it is often held at rather an angle 

 downward, giving the bird a peculiar and almost insect- 

 like appearance. But the marked and extraordinary 

 pecuharity was the custom the cocks had of dancing in 

 artificially-made dancing-rings. For a mile and a half 

 beyond our camp, down the course of the Kamiti, the 



