In Wildest Africa -9^ 



successfully made their \vh\- to the I'olar lands, their usual 

 summer breeding-place. 



High over my head the voice of the pretty avocet 

 [/\cr/n':'iros/ra avocetta, L.), one of the most charming 

 forms of the bird world known to us, transports me by 

 maofic to the distant and mournful lakes of the Masailand 

 wilderness. What the dwarf bustards [Otis gindiaiia. 

 Oust.) keep calling out to each other with their continually 

 repeated " Ragga-ga-ragga " is not to be discovered. But 

 their cry, which has kept the fancy of the natives busy 

 since olden days, is as inseparably associated with regions 

 on which the s^rass Qfrows hio^h, as the voices and cries 

 of the sandfowl, the francolins. and, above all, the 

 jarring outcries of the guinea-fowl, on the velt. All the 

 manifold voices of doves, cuckoos, parrots, hornbills, 

 bee-eaters, shrikes, orioles, starlings, finches, weaver- 

 birds, sylvians, and the rest, calling, exulting, rejoicing, 

 uttering cries ot alarni or complaint, have woven them- 

 selves into my recollections ot happy days and days 

 of toil. 



Thus there still rings in my ear the triple note of 

 the yellowish green bulbul {Pycnonotns layardi, Gurn.), 

 which, like our sparrow, is present everywhere, till one 

 almost tires of it. INIost curious is the fricntlly play which 

 the handsomely coloured glossy starling [Sprco supcybtts, 

 Riipp.) carries on with a weaver-bird [/ )iiicnic//ia ditiouc/h, 

 1 Hartl.] Riipi)) in llights like those of our sparrows. It 

 comes back to me all the morc^ \i\idly when I recall 

 the notes uttered by these two birds, which, though such 

 close friends and taking such delight in each other's 



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