HOUW HOEK AND STANFORD 99 



on this occasion. This Dutch farmer told us that the 

 birds were probably only just beginning to build, owing 

 to the late season. With the river too deep for 

 wading, and without the convenience of a boat, we were 

 naturally placed at a disadvantage with regard to finding 

 nests of water fowl, but still, as many of the reeds were 

 not at all thickly placed together, we ought certainly to 

 have been able to see from the shore any nests that 

 there might be. We put up a fair number of the 

 common Wild Duck of the Colony, Geelbeck, as they 

 are called, which would scuttle out of the water, making 

 a great noise, and then fly round in a circle and settle 

 perhaps half a mile away. Colonies of Weaver-birds 

 were very clamorous as we pushed our way through the 

 thick sedge that fringed the river, and we saw for the 

 first time one or two Red Bishop-birds. 



The day was warm, and the buzzing of the mos- 

 quitoes over the water seemed to give an appearance 

 of summer heat for the first time since we had been in 

 the Colony. A bird that was extremely common was 

 the Purple Heron, looking on the wing rather smaller 

 than our Heron, specimens of which were also here. 

 We saw no Purple Gallinules, although they were 

 known to breed on this river, but a few of the South 

 African Coots were to be made out some distance away 

 in the middle of the lake. A bird that breeds here is 

 the Reed Duyker ; there are many kinds of Duyker, or 

 Cormorant, in South Africa, but this is the only one of 

 the species that breeds in fresh water, the others nesting 

 on the various islands round the coast. One of these 

 birds that we saw was flying with a reed in its beak, so 

 they were evidently commencing to build. 



