In Wildest Africa -»> 



We are in luck ; the rhinoceroses are ambling towards 

 us, and come nearer and nearer, slowly following the 

 line of some hollows in the ground. 



Now, borne on strong pinions, and brightly illuminated 

 by the sunbeams, one of the great bustards cuts through 

 the sea of air, and sinks down into some low ground 

 far away below us. This is not an unusual sight in the 

 late hours of the afternoon, and soon after we see not 

 only some more of the same species, but also three 

 other bustards of a smaller and commoner species that is 

 more active in flight. It is the Otis gindiana, which I 

 have got to like so much on account of its charming 

 gambols on the wing, that must be a pleasure to every 

 lover of birds. At this time of day it carries on this 

 strange tumbling in the air, and if the day is hot and 

 dry it makes for the neighbourhood of the water, or in 

 any case for certain hollow places of the velt that 

 provide it with at least a certain amount of soft vegetable 

 food. Another picture ! A great flock of spendidly 

 coloured crested cranes wings its strong undulating flight 

 and goes away over the hill. I notice in the air the 

 striking appearance of the snake-vulture and a pair of 

 the nimble-winged Bateleur eagles, the "sky apes" of 

 the Abysslnians. My gaze follows them eagerly into the 

 distance. . . In what various ways the bird world displays 

 its mastery of the realms of air ! Our attention is riveted 

 now on the quiet gliding flight of the vulture in the 

 highest levels of the air, now on the spectacle of a 

 struggle in the air between some birds of prey and 

 some ravens or bee-eaters that are annoying thenu 



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