In \\"ilclcst Africa ^ 



ot a nuicli-vlsited drinking-place is literally filled with 

 these beautiful and swift-winged birds. The rustling and 

 beating of their wings in rapid flight makes in itself a 

 concert. I not unfrequently came upon places that bore 

 the name ot the " Doves' water," or the '' Doves' resting- 

 j)lace." All the various voices of the many species of 

 doves that find a home in the Nyi'ka resound again in 

 the tra\eller's ears for years after. Whether it be the 

 strange voice of the parrot-pigeon, that ushers in the 

 concert with a hollow " Kruh-kruh " and follows it up 

 with some remarkable notes, or the melancholy cry of 

 the little steel-spotted pigeon that comes to us from the 

 thickets, or the strong, loud-sounding love-notes of 

 the already-mentioned Colinuha aquafri.w Tem., so like 

 our ringdove, or, above all. the tamiliar sweet voices of 

 the many small kinds of turtle-doves — all these sounds, the 

 rustling and fluttering and Ideating of wings, the living, 

 moving picture presented by all these beautiful birds, 

 belong inseparably to the essence and being of the 

 Nyi'ka. When the turtle-doves greet the morning with 

 their soft cooing, their call is answered from afar by 

 strano^e i>"uttural tones borne swiftlv throuijh the air. 

 sounding like " Cile-gie-lagak-gle-aga-aga." from the velt- 

 lowl hurrying like- themselves to the water. Hrehm, in 

 his Iui)cu dcr ]'oo;c/, has already raised a poetical 

 monutr.cnt to them made up of beautiful lines. Hut I 

 could not piciurc to myself the morning concert ol the 

 bird world in the; X\ika without the strange cry of 

 tl'ie sand-fowl and th(; cooing ot the doves, and the 

 peculiar sound ol tin; beating wings ol the \ch-towl as 



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