In Wildest Africa ^ 



could imagine that that little bird far away over there, 

 a hardly perceptible speck on the horizon, Is producing this 

 strange music ? '* Knack ! knack ! knack ! " again, and yet 

 again, It comes to us ringing out loud and clear. Our 

 little invisible songster does not tire of pouring out Its 

 strange misleading song. It is a kind of love-song of 

 a species of lark, which was discovered by Fischer some 

 fifteen years ago and bears the name of the naturalist, 

 now long deceased ; Mirafra fisckeri, Rchw.,^ Is Its 

 scientific name. Its clapping and rattling are undoubtedly 

 part of the charm of a journey In certain districts of the 

 Masai- Nyika. 



Even In my tent, In the midst of the comparatively 

 loud noise of the busy camp of my numerous caravan, I 

 can hear the clapping, rattling voice of this lark. Some 

 hundreds of yards away It files up into the sky, like our own 

 skylark, and hovers about clattering In the air, so loudly 

 and distinctly that If I did not know Its character and 

 habits, I would have been continually looking for It close 

 to my tent. It Is very hard to quite free oneself from 

 this illusion. One continually thinks that one hears the 

 cry of the bird in one's immediate neighbourhood, the 

 sound being produced much in the same way as that of 

 the snipe. 



And yet another strange voice of a lark resounds 

 in my ears : a melancholy, plaintive, soft sound, till 

 now unknown to me and to most others. All night 

 long its calls and cries resound about my camp. I 

 should never have thought that it was a lark {Mirafra 

 ^ Cf. Professor Dr. A. Reichenow, Die Vogel Afrikas. 

 306 



