MY SOMALI BOOK 73 



pool in a water-course by which we encamped for the 

 night. I did not succeed in shooting one of these, 

 but from their crepuscular habit, like that of the 

 painted grouse, but with a different note, I put them 

 down as probably P. Liclitensteini. 



Of other birds, there was a parrot, swift of flight 

 like all its kind ; dark grey-green above except for a 

 bright green band above the tail, and bright orange- 

 red below. Hornbills, easily distinguishable, apart 

 from their rostral ornaments, by the peculiar un- 

 dulations of their flight. Bustards of two or three 

 species, large and small. Lively weaver-birds whose 

 nesting-season was on : in one tree I counted upwards 

 of fifty nests in the same style as those of their relative 

 the Indian haya, but of grass instead of palm-fibre, and 

 lacking the long pendent tubular entrance that adds 

 so much character to the Indian nests. 



Not that all those nests contained eggs by any 

 means, or ever would contain them. Many were ob- 

 viously incomplete, a cock-bird sitting in one, or 

 fussing about it as if it was of far greater importance 

 than the more finished construction on the next branch, 

 within which his lady was quietly attending to her own 

 particular duty. The cock-bird in his sununer suit 

 of brilliant yellow looks a flighty fellow, and it may be 

 that his better half, remembering the adage about 

 idle hands — or wings or beaks — ^has with feminine 

 guile filled his head with such an idea of his own 

 powers in the architectural line that he can think of 

 nothing else. So now, while domestic affairs prevent 

 her from keeping an eye upon him for the time being, 

 he spends his hours in nest-building on his own account, 



