150 THE BIEDS OF EIVER AND VLEI 



It is met with along the coast and on some of the 

 larger rivers, and we procured it at Port Elizabeth. 



The Egyptian Goose (Chenalopex cegyptiacus) called by 

 the Boers the Berg Gans (Mountain Goose), is a pretty, 

 graceful bird ; it is black above, except the crown, which 

 is white; nape and neck greyish-fawn, with a narrow 

 pale chestnut collar ; the wings are ashy brown ; below 

 greyish-white and pale chestnut, the sides of the body 

 and lower neck being grey mottled with fine bands of 

 black. The ring round the eye and round patch on the 

 breast both bright chestnut will serve to easily dis- 

 tinguish this bird from any of its kind. 



It ranges through the whole of South Africa, being 

 common on the vleis of the Orange Kiver Colony at 

 certain seasons, where it breeds amongst the rushes, 

 laying pure white eggs, five to eight in a clutch. This 

 bird has been recorded as breeding on a cliff, and even 

 amongst the grass and rocks of a kopje on the veld. 

 In the photograph (fig. 108), the geese have comman- 

 deered the disused nest of a Hammerhead ; the nest can 

 be seen on a ledge of the cliff, near the top of the picture 

 (left centre), the entrance-hole projecting downwards. 

 The bird in the foreground has the wing outspread, 

 shewing the conspicuous white patch. 



We have kept this goose repeatedly in captivity, but 

 they are pugnacious in the poultry yard, pursuing and 

 persecuting ducks and fowls alike. Their harsh barking 

 quack (so aptly described by Andersson) is irritating in 

 the extreme, except when heard in the wilds. 



The Yellow-billed Duck (Anas undulata), known to the 

 Boer farmers as the "geelbek," is perhaps the com- 

 monest and most widely spread of the South African 



