THE RIVER JUNGLE 



This is a careless statement that can easily be read 

 to mean that African birds are silent. The writer 

 evidently must have had in mind as a criterion some 

 of our own or the English great feathered soloists. 

 Certainly the African jungle seems to produce no 

 individual performers as sustained as our own bob- 

 o-link, our hermit thrush, or even our common robin. 

 But the African birds are vocal enough, for all that. 

 Some of them have a richness and depth of timbre 

 perhaps unequalled elsewhere. Of such is the chime- 

 bint with his deep double note; or the bell-bird toll- 

 ing like a cathedral in the blackness of the forest; 

 or the bottle bird that apparently pours gurgling 

 liquid gold from a silver jug. As the jungle is ex- 

 ceedingly populous of these feathered specialists, it 

 follows that the early morning chorus is wonderful. 

 Africa may not possess the soloists, but its full or- 

 chestrial effects are superb. 



Naturally under the equator one expects and de- 

 mands the "gorgeous tropical plumage" of the books. 

 He is not disappointed. The sun-birds of fifty odd 

 species, the brilliant blue starlings, the various par- 

 rots, the variegated hornbills, the widower-birds, 

 and dozens of others whose names would mean noth- 

 ing flash here and there in the shadow and in the 

 open. With them are hundreds of quiet little bod- 

 ies just as interesting to one who likes birds. From 



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