CH. xiii] SNAKES, BIRDS, ETC. 383 



There were a good mHiiy poisonous snakes. I killed 

 a big pufi'-adder with thirteen eggs inside it ; and w^e 

 also killed a squat, short-tailed viper, beautifully 

 mottled, not eighteen inehes long, but with a wide, flat 

 liead and a girth of body out of all proportion to its 

 length ; and another very poisonous and vicious snake, 

 apparently of colubrine type, long and slender. The 

 birds were an unceasing pleasure. White wagtails and 

 yellow wagtails walked familiarly about us within a few 

 feet, wherever we halted and when w^e were in camp. 

 Long-tailed crested colys, with all four of their red toes 

 pointed forward, clung to the sides of tlie big fruits at 

 which they picked. White-headed swallows caught 

 flies and gnats by our heads. There were large plantain 

 eaters, and birds like small jays with yellow wattles 

 round the eyes. There were boat-tailed birds, in colour 

 iridescent green and purple, which looked like our 

 grakles, but w^ere kin to the bulbuls ; and another bird, 

 related to the shrikes, with bristly feathers on the i*ump, 

 wliich was coloiu-ed like a red-winged blackbird, l)lack 

 with red shoulders. \^ultures were not plentiful, but 

 the yellow billed kites, true camp scavengers, were 

 common and tame, screaming as they circled overhead, 

 and catching bits of meat which were thrown in the air 

 for them. The shrews and mice which the naturalists 

 trapped around each camping-place were kin to the 

 species we had already obtained in East Africa, but in 

 most cases there w^as a fairly well-marked difference ; 

 the jerbilles, for instance, had shorter tails, more like 

 ordinary rats. Frogs with queer voices abounded in 

 the marshes. Among the ants was one arboreal kind, 

 which made huge nests, shaped like beehives, or rather 

 like big grey bells, in the trees. Near the lake, by 

 the way, there were Goliath beetles, as large as small 

 rats. 



