MY SOMALI BOOK 125 



many, belonged to familiar Indian types, which I 

 suppose was not remarkable as Somaliland is part of 

 the Indo-Ethiopian region. And of course that cos- 

 mopolitan insect the Painted Lady was there — where 

 is she not to be found, gladdening the eye with her 

 sprightliness and beauty ? One day shy and distant 

 or tantalising in her coquetry, showing the next a 

 confiding familiarity, that is all her own. For me 

 recalling distant memories of a little country rector}^ 

 garden in the dear Green Isle, with which are associated 

 my earliest recollections of this entirely charming 

 daughter of the sunlight. 



To turn from butterflies to birds. Nightjars of 

 two or three species were common. One cannot 

 wonder that, East and West, they are objects of super- 

 stition. They are weird uncanny birds, so unlike any 

 others of the feathered tribes in their silent, swerving, 

 moth-like flight ; their indifference to one's presence, 

 and habit of dropping to the ground in perfect silence, 

 squatting as if they had no legs within a few feet of 

 one in the dusk ; the peculiar character of their notes, 

 in harmony with the mysteries of night, all tend to 

 invest the nightjar with a fascination that to me, 

 wherever I may meet it, is always of the jungle. 



And in the daytime its scheme of colouration is 

 always so wonderfully in harmony with its surroundings. 

 More than once a pair of bright eyes alone has warned 

 me that I had all but set foot upon a living bird, which 

 even then has made no attempt to move until I put 

 my hand down to touch it. 



Another bird that was often in evidence was a 

 grey shrike, a beautiful bird like all his race, with a 



