ENDEPJT RIVER AND LAKE NAKURU 19 



cling to the steeps above or straggle irregular across the 

 plain, while crag and mountain-ridge fill in the back- 

 ground. Species differ, but form remains not dissimilar. 



This morning, ere yet the dawn was fully established, 

 a weird melody caught my ear, and, looking from the 

 tent, I saw its author on the topmost bough of an acacia 

 — a glossy starling-like bird A\ith deeply-forked tail. 

 This was a drongo [Dicrurus musicus), one of the 

 shrike family, and a warrior to boot, albeit a songster ; 

 for never a kite or crow, not even an eagle, venturing 

 near our camp, was immune from its furious onslaught.^ 

 While sipping the matutinal coffee I could actually see 

 herds of wild animals peacefully grazing within view 

 from my camp-bed ! On putting the glass on to these, 

 I found they included zebras and Thomson's gazelles ; 

 while further away the ruddy pelts of hartebeests were 

 distino'uisliable. 



The latter, in this district, are the rather scarce 

 Neumann's hartebeest {Bubalis neumanni), and to 

 secure specimens of these formed our first and main 

 objective on the Enderit. 



The first animal actually shot on the Enderit, how- 

 ever, was a zebra, and, while skinning proceeded, 1 

 enjoyed watching that ever- wondrous spectacle of wild 

 African life, the assembling of the carnivora. Life was 

 hardly extinct ere dark shadows passed and repassed on 

 the sere grass hard by. Looking upwards, the heavens 

 were flecked with circling hordes. Soon the smaller 

 vultures (dark-brown neophrons with livid pink faces) 

 descended with collapsed wings, alighting with resonant 

 rush all around us, many within thirty yards. Then 

 the huge carrion-vultures (the African griffon, Pseudo- 

 gyps africanus, deep brown with conspicuous white 

 patches on lower body, and the still blacker Eared 

 vulture, Lophogyps auricularis, with red ear-lobes) 



^ A drongo will remain perched by the hour on a bough, 

 ■watching for passing insects. Presently he darts down, catches one, 

 sometimes two or three in rapid succession, then returns to his post, 

 exactly as our flycatchers do at home. 



