THE ATHI RIVER 



213 



midday siesta on the veld — some quite undesirable, as 

 scorpions and great hook-clawed millipedes half-a-foot 

 long ; others curious, as the mantis, infinite stick-insects, 

 rhinoceros beetles, and assorted 

 Coleoptera in various sizes, with 

 ants and hairy spiders and other 

 c[uaint forms. They may be harm- 

 less — or not ; but, being unknown, 

 are apt to cause a passing c[ualni 

 when discovered on one's person. 

 For instance, it must give a chill 

 suddenly to meet the cold green 

 eye of a great lizard steadfastly 

 surveying one from a crevice not 

 a foot away. One day, in a grove 

 by the Athi, a reiterated snap, 

 snap, arrested attention, and there, 

 pressed upright against a grey 



■VIS-A-VIS. 



trunk, sat the 'tiny grey owl whose 

 portrait is here rudely reproduced. 



Hen-harriers, both the blue males 

 and " ring- tails," quartered the open 

 veld in pairs, and on burnt ground 

 crowds of white storks feasted on 

 singed grasshoppers and locusts. With 

 them were others, smaller and of darker 

 plumage, that I at first took to be 

 black storks. They were, however, 

 Ciconia ahdimii. Black kites {Milvus 

 korschun) abounded up to mid- 

 February, when they withdrew, leav- 

 ing only their yellow-billed cousin, 

 M. wgyptiacus, to scavenge around 

 our camps. 



The driest arid plain formed a 

 for four waders, to wit — the Asiatic 

 ringed plover, dunlin and pratincole. 

 The last-named in bands of thirty or forty would 

 spring close by, and, after a short flight, all plump 



SCOPS CAPEXSIS. 



winter home 

 dotterel, the 



