102 BIEDS 



first, they must travel towards Vau in October; and, 

 secondly, although travellers may be disappointed at the 

 warmth of welcome extended to them by the inhabitants, 

 yet they may count on the warmest greeting from the 

 mosquitoes. 



ANOTHER EIFLEMAN IN AFRICA. 



The passage to which our correspondent alludes reads 

 as follows : 



" It was around these green-shaded watercourses and 

 round the lily pools . . . that I heard for the first time 

 the entrancing song of the red thrush. More lovely in 

 voice than the nightingale, more shy than he, his song 

 seems the soaring spirit of the haunts in which he dwells : 

 first, whispering notes like little puffs of wind through 

 green leaves ; then a soft soliloquy of liquid sounds like 

 the stream that runs below his singing-bough, so sad that 

 it is surely here beneath these waters that Narcissus lies. 

 Quicker and louder mounts the song, to break in long 

 notes that swoop and thrill with a passion that is all the 

 sweet bird's own. Hours have I watched to catch sight 

 of the maker of such pure music but never to see more 

 than a flash of red in the interval of silence before the 

 fountain of song began to shower again from some fresh- 

 enchanted tree until I almost came to believe that it was 

 a spirit bodiless, and to think it most right that a voice 

 which could interpret the heart-beat of Earth, should be 

 too great to dwell in tenement more confined than air." 

 ED., Spectator.] 



August 15, 1908. 



NOTE. I have been unable to identify this red thrush. 

 The red-bellied thrush (Turdus rufiventris) is an in- 

 habitant of South America and an inferior singer to our 

 throstle. It is certainly surprising to meet with a fine 

 songster in tropical countries (the pellucid chime of the 

 campanero or bell-bird of Brazil, is hardly a song), the 



