LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 



103 



These rhinoceros-birds (continues our mighty 

 banter) are constant attendants upon the hippopot- 

 amus and the four varieties of rhinoceros, their 

 object being to feed upon the ticks and other par- 

 asitic insects that swarm upon these animals. 

 They are of a grayish color, and are nearly as 

 large as a common thrush ; their voice is very sim- 

 ilar to that of the mistletoe thrush. Many a time 

 have these ever-watchful birds disappointed me in 

 my stalk, and tempted me to invoke an anathema 

 en their devoted heads. They are the best friends 

 the rhinoceros has, and rarely fail to awaken him, 

 even in his soundest nap. " Chuckuroo" perfectly 

 understands their warning, and, springing to his 

 feet, he generally looks about him in every direc- 

 tion, after which he invariably makes off. I have 

 often hunted a rhinoceros on horseback, which led 

 me a chase of many miles, and required a number 

 of shots before he fell, during which chase several 

 of these birds remained by the rhinoceros to the 

 last. They reminded me of mariners on the deck 

 of some bark sailing on the ocean, for they perched 

 along his back and sides ; and as each of my bul- 

 lets told on the shoulder of the rhinoceros they 

 ascended about six feet into the air, uttering their 

 harsh cry of alarm, and then resumed their position. 

 It sometimes happened that the lower branches of 

 trees, under which the rhinoceros passed, swept 

 them from their living deck, but they always re- 

 covered their former station ; they also adhere to 

 the rhinoceros during the night, I have often shot 

 these animals at midnight when drinking at the 

 fountains, and the birds, imagining they were 

 asleep, remained with. them till morning, and on 

 my approaching, before taking flight, they exerted 

 themselves to their utmost to awaken Chuckuroo 

 from his deep sleep. 



Geoffroy was of opinion, and others agree with 

 him, that the Egyptian dotterel!,* first described 

 by Hasselquist, is the trochilos of Herodotus ; and 

 it is a curious instance of the perverseness of 

 systematists that they should have pressed the 

 last-mentioned name into their service to designate 

 those volatile animated gemsf which shoot by like 

 meteors in that western world which was unknown 

 to the ancients, and to which these brilliant birds 

 are exclusively confined. Linnaeus, who gives 



* Ckaradrius jEgyptius, Linn. Hamet, Hippo's care- 

 ful and intelligent attendant, when told what Herodotus 

 and Aristotle had stated on this subject, expressed his 

 disbelief of the story, but said he knew the bird, which 

 he described pretty accurately. Mr. Mitchell took him 

 down to the museum, in the garden, when he at once 

 pointed out Hoplopterus spinosus, a spur-winged dotterell 

 or plover, as the bird he meant. This species, it appears, 

 is constantly found in the places where the crocodiles 

 land, and runs about hunting tor insects small mollusca, 

 perhaps, and such things when the crocodiles are lying 

 asleep. The appearance of the hunter immediately ex- 

 cites a noisy note from the plover, the crocodile wakes, 

 and the natives believe that the bird is the crocodile's 

 friend and watchman. The Sheigea Arabs call this bird 

 El sngda; the natives of Dongola call it El' um tisaad, 

 which, being interpreted, means the cousin or niece of 

 the crocodile. Mr. Curzon's narrative leads to the in- 

 ference of a much more intimate connexion between the 

 bird and the crocodile than a mere cry at the approach of 

 danger. The spur on each of the wings of hoplopterus is 

 nearly half an inch long. The reader will remember, in 

 one of the versions of the story, the sharp spine with 

 which the bird is said to be armed, and which Leo places 

 on its head. 



t The humming-birds TrockUidcc and Trochilius of 

 modern ornithologists inhabiting America and the West 

 India islands. 



the Egyptian dotterell a place among his charadrii, 

 (plovers,) makes no sign as to its being the trochi- 

 lus of Herodotus, and he adopts that word as the 

 specific name of the common wren of our hedges.* 



In the grand battle between the hippopotami 

 and the crocodiles, represented on the plinth of 

 the statue of Nilus, a somewhat long-billed but 

 rather corpulent long-legged bird seems ready to 

 come to the assistance of a crocodile, which has a 

 hippopotamus fast by the nose. Another and 

 similar bird stands calmly before an open-mouthed 

 crocodile. If the sculptor intended these for 

 trochili, they have not much of the wren about 

 them, nor of the plover either. They may have 

 been meant for ibises looking on at the row. 



Hasselquist declares that the crocodiles do in- 

 expressible mischief to the common people of 

 Upper Egypt, often killing and devouring women 

 who come to the river to fetch water, and children 

 playing on the shore or swimming in the river. 

 He relates that in the stomach of one dissected 

 before Mr. Barton, the English consul, the bones 

 of the legs and arms of a woman, with the rings 

 which Egyptian women wear as ornaments, were 

 found. The fishermen, whose nets are broken by 

 the crocodiles if they come in his way, are, he 

 says, often exposed to great danger from those 

 terrible monsters. 



Sonnini relates that they are formidable to the 

 inhabitants, and that in some places they are 

 obliged to form in the river an enclosure of stakes 

 and fagots, that the women, in drawing water, 

 may not have their legs carried off by the croco- 

 diles. The Catholics, he adds, are persuaded 

 that those hideous destroyers will attack a Mus- 

 sulman, but forbear to injure a Christian, and 

 bathe without fear in the Nile, while the Mahome- 

 tans, acknowledging the miracle, dare not expose 

 themselves there. 



After alluding to the veneration which the 

 crocodile experienced in some parts of Egypt in 

 remote times, and the fury with which it was pur- 

 sued and destroyed in others, Sonnini remarks 

 that in his time the crocodile was neither rever- 

 enced nor destroyed. Banished to the most south- 

 ern part of Egypt, they assemble there, he says, 

 in vast numbers. They are to be seen when the 

 sun is at its height, their head above the water, 

 immovable, and appearing at a distance like large 

 pieces of floating wood, gliding slowly down with 

 the current and basking in the heat, in which they 

 delight. He shot several, approaching very close, 

 which, as they were not often disturbed, he was 

 able to do ; but he does not appear to have bagged 

 any like Mr. Cumming, with whose best and 

 worst dog the crocodiles of South Africa made off. 

 In the neighborhood of Thebes, the small boat in 

 which Sonnini sailed up the river was often sur- 

 rounded by crocodiles. They saw the party pass 

 with indifference, neither discovering fear nor any 

 cruel intent at the approach of the voyagers. The 

 noise of the musket-shot alone disturbed their 

 tranquillity. Sonnini asserts that they never rise 

 * Motacilla trochilus. 



