Ill Wildest Africa -^ 



conscious reliance on the security of his dwelling-place, 

 so to say, mockini;- at all enemies. So deceptive 

 are his cries that at first, and especially when I was 

 in the neighbourhood of native settlements, I was 

 continually looking everywhere for sheep and their 

 shepherds. 



Many other typical bird-voices live in my memory. 

 I hear the peculiar plaintive cry of the large cormorants 

 that are busy with their fishing by the salt lakes of the 

 wilderness, a cry that seems most fitted for these solitudes. 

 The mysterious chattering and chirping of the little 

 swamp-fowl come to my ear from the shallows and the 

 bushes along the banks of silent rivers of the primeval 

 forest, a bird-language so strange that the natives believe 

 the birds are conversing with the fish in the stream. I 

 hear the cackling of the knowing Nile-geese, that seem 

 to be always engaged in conversation ; when on the wing, 

 too, a pair of them, in their affectionate fidelity, have 

 always some warning, some reminder of something or 

 other to call out to each other. Where their cry resounds 

 one hears also frequently that of the wonderful, wailing 

 peewit ; it has a plaintive and melancholy eftect on the 

 mind of the listener. I'ar different is the noisy outcry 

 of its brlojhtlv coloured cousin, a denizen of the thirstv 

 wilderness {Stephanibyx coronal us. Bodd.). Shrill and 

 harsh the voice of the bird rings cut, a watch-cry by day 

 and night, and when in bright moonlight nights they lly 

 in fiocks over the camp. vS warms of these remarkable 

 l)irds. the jjolice of the wilderness in feathered uniforms, 

 llutter around the traxcllcr as he approaches. The)' ruin 



30S 



