134 BIG GAME SHOOTING 
quarter of a mile up stream in full view; halt ; join in a 
chorus of barking, yelping, and baying ; suddenly pull up in 
the middle of the concert, and dash at the top of their speed, 
absolutely mute, out of sight on a lower level, to the point they 
had started from, jump into the water and swim across, selling 
the alligators, who, hungry after their ‘course of bark,’ were 
eagerly expecting their dinner at the spot where they had had 
the largest dose. Whether this was eyes or ears, or both, I could 
not make out. One beast has wits, another power ; and so the 
balance is pretty fairly kept. 
While still in the desert, during our first trip, Livingstone 
called my attention to a wonderful bit of instinct in a bird 
—he mentions it in his works, but it is worth telling a second 
time. We had been a couple of days without water, and I was 
enjoying watching the cattle swell themselves out in a chance 
thunder-shower pond we had just come to, and sitting dabbling 
my feet, when to me the dear old Doctor, ‘I say, what do you 
think is the greatest proof of conjugal affection you ever knew ?’ 
‘Go along, I’m not occupied with such matters.’ ‘Don’t be 
cross; come here. Do you see the chink in that tree, and that 
large horn-billed bird going backwards and forwards to it? 
What do you think he’s doing?’ ‘Oh, making a fool of him- 
self generally.’ ‘No, he’s feeding his wife and his children, 
who are shut in behind it.’ And it was so. The ornithological 
name of the bird I don’t know, but he’s something between 
a toucan and a hornbill, neither one nor the other, about the © 
size of a large pigeon, though, if I remember right, more like — 
a woodpecker in build. After marriage the birds select a hole ~ 
in a tree, and gather a few sticks for a nest; the hen takes — 
some feathers off her breast to line it and lays her eggs. When — 
this is done, and incubation begins, the male bird goes to the — 
nearest pond, and brings wet clay, with which he stops up the — 
hole at which his wife went in, leaving one narrow opening in 
the centre, and through this the excellent fellow feeds mamma 
and little ones, until the latter are fledged and ready to leave — 
the nest, then he and she, from outside and in, jointly peck — 
