MISCELLANEOUS BIRDS 53 



THE BLACK STORK is also a summer visitor to South 

 Africa, but certainly in individual cases remains in the 

 south all the year round, as I have several times noticed 

 them in the Transvaal low country during the winter 

 months, always in pairs, and one was shot on the Olifants 

 River early in July, All storks, especially the well- 

 known European migrant, follow the locust swarms in 

 great numbers, and, in common with kites, starlings, 

 and many others, levy an enormous toll. 



THE HAMMERHEAD. Most residents in Africa are 

 familiar with this queer, stolid-looking bird, with its 

 crested head and plain brown plumage. Although 

 measuring but little over twenty inches in length, it yet 

 builds a nest which might well be worthy of the largest 

 bird that flies. Mr. Haagner, in his " Sketches of South 

 African Bird Life," thus describes it : "It consists of 

 sticks and mud : first a saucer-shaped foundation, about 

 three feet in diameter, is built of large sticks thrown 

 together and cemented with mud. Upon this foundation 

 a circular dome-shaped structure is erected, contain- 

 ing a round chamber (sometimes two) ; it is a solid 

 structure, with a round entrance hole just large enough 

 to admit the bird. The top is often decorated with old 

 tins, rags, bits of plank, and we have even found dead 

 birds, and old bits of skin. It may measure four feet by 

 three and a half, and is sufficiently strong to bear easily 

 the weight of a heavy man." These nests are, of course, 

 more or less permanent structures, constantly used by 

 the same pair of birds. 



HERONS. There are fifteen species of herons and 

 bitterns described from south Africa; amongst them, 

 and extending through most of Africa, is the splendid 

 Goliath Heron, which is the largest of its tribe in the 

 world. 



