THE PRIMEVAL FORESTS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 215 



bushes; delightful bee-eaters or rollers, paradise fly-catchers and 

 drongos sit on the lower twigs of the second layer of tree -tops 

 awaiting their flying prey; on the stronger branches of the third 

 layer turacos hop about, small herons walk with dignity backwards 

 and forwards, horned and other owls cling closely to the stems and 

 sleep ; parrots and barbets flit about among the thick foliage of the 

 tallest trees, while eagles, falcons, and vultures have settled on their 

 topmost boughs. Wherever one casts one's eye there is a bird. 



As might be expected from this universal distribution, or indeed 

 omnipresence, we hear continually the most varied bird - voices. 

 They coax and call, pipe and whistle, chirp and twitter, trill and 

 warble, coo and chatter, scream and crow, screech and cackle, cry 

 and sing on all sides of us, above and beneath, early and late, and all 

 day long. A hundred different voices sound together, now blending 

 into a wonderful harmony, now into a bewildering maze of sounds 

 which one seeks in vain to analyse, in which only long practice 

 enables one to differentiate individual voices. With the excep- 

 tion of thrushes, bulbuls, several species of warblers, and drongos, 

 there are no true songsters, but there are many pleasing babblers 

 and delightful chatterers, and an endless number who scream, cackle, 

 croak, and utter various more or less shrill sounds. Taken collec- 

 tively, therefore, the bird-notes of the primitive forest cannot for a 

 moment compare in tunefulness and sweetness with the spring songs 

 of our own woods, but the individual voices are most remarkable. 

 Wild doves coo, moan, laugh, and call from the tree-tops and the 

 thickest bushes, f rancolins and guinea-fowl cackle loudly from their 

 midst, parrots screech, ravens croak, plantain-eaters succeed in most 

 accurately mimicking the strange guttural cries of a troop of long- 

 tailed monkeys, while the turacos utter sounds like those made by 

 a ventriloquist; barbets whistle loudly in slurred notes, their voices 

 together making a ringing song, so intricate, yet so full of expres- 

 sion that it must be reckoned one of the most distinctive sounds 

 of the forest; the shimmering metallic starlings sing, and though 

 they can only compass a few rough sounds, now croaking, now 

 screeching, now squeaking, these are arranged, combined, blended, 

 and allowed to die away in endless repetition; the magnificent 



