CHAPTER IX. 

 BIRDS OF PREY IN CAPE COLONY. 



AFRICA, and especially South Africa, is 

 peculiarly rich in birds of prey. Whether 

 you traverse mountain, karroo, forest, bush- 

 veldt, or deep and jungly kloofs, you will never be 

 long out of sight of some member of the order 

 raptores, be it vulture or eagle, buzzard, kite, falcon 

 or owl. Of these raptorial birds it may be asserted, 

 from a study of the most competent- authorities, that 

 some fifty or more species are to be found within the 

 limits of the Cape Colony (i.e., the old Cape Colony 

 proper, bounded by the Orange River on the north and 

 the Kei River on the east). These limits embrace a 

 vast extent of country, much of it scarcely known to 

 the colonists, and still more quite unexplored to this 

 day by ornithologists, and it is, therefore, not at all 

 improbable that some rare birds of prey may to this 

 hour be existing in melancholy obscurity, so far as 

 collectors are concerned. Mr. E. L. Layard, in his 

 11 Birds of South Africa," acknowledges that many 

 species on the frontiers, especially to the eastward, 

 may be yet undescribed, as he had not been able to 

 visit these districts personally, or get anyone to 

 collect there for him. 



The raptorial birds of Cape Colony, exclusive of 

 the secretary bird, may be divided as follows : Five 

 species of vulture, two buzzards, twelve eagles, two 

 kites, seven falcons, thirteen hawks, five harriers, 



