ELMENTEITA IN FEBRUARY 145 



fliglit and actions, witli the fluttering descent, were pre- 

 cisely similar. I also noticed here a tree-pipit descend- 

 ing with the same hovering insect-like flight it uses at 

 home during the nesting-season. Here, however, it was 

 silent. Another of our small British migrants that we 

 noticed on Lake Elmenteita was the wheatear. 



Impressive as had been the sight of monster pachy- 

 derms still roaming this earth in flesh and blood, and 

 not as extinct mammoths in some geological museum, 

 yet the sight of these tiny British warblers here on the 

 far equator, was scarcely less striking. 



AN AFiiiCAX LARK, OR " LONG-CLAW " {Macronyx CTOceios). 

 Throat and lower parts, also eyebrow, golden-yellow. 



Following are my brother's impressions of these days 

 and nights on Lake Elmenteita — 



" Wlien the hippo had beaten us by daylight and 

 we tried the alternative of a night-attack, some new 

 sensations were experienced — sensations that cannot, 

 perhaps, be entirely expressed in words unless the spirit 

 of poetry be inborn. How intangible and weird is the 

 environment as one sets forth at midnight with only 

 the silver-fretted light of the moon as a guide ! One 

 naturally holds the open ground, avoiding the deep 

 shade of trees or banks, not only to save the risk of 

 falling into pitfall or unseen obstacle, but by an un- 

 conscious dread of the unknown that is hidden in dark- 

 ness. So, too, one imagines that safety is better assured 

 where two or three are gathered together. Few, in fact, 

 would care to face alone the dano-ers of the wild African 



L, 



