312 FROM THE NIGER TO THE NILE 



flits away to take refuge in some cut branches. Presently 

 it emerges at the other end and hops on to a high twig, from 

 which point of vantage it takes observations, cocking tail up 

 and down the while. It is by no means a common bird, and 

 the nearness of native plantations seem essential to its 

 existence. 



The native is not a tidy farmer ; appearances are nothing 

 to him, and he leaves the tree-stumps in the ground some 

 3 ft. high. These are made use of by the perching birds, such 

 as small, dark-plumaged fly-catchers {Muscicapa) which are 

 of very local distribution, keeping to themselves, a pair here 

 and a pair there, and generally on the sunnyside of the 

 plantations. 



Their close relatives, the Alseonaxes, haunt more the small 

 rivers, where there are good trees and snags in the stream 

 that make attractive perches. 



And then there are always woodpeckers to be seen running 

 up and down, drilling holes in the stark limbs of the tall 

 forest trees that have been killed by the bush fires. Here 

 also glossy starlings (Lamprocolius) alight to break their 

 journey to some distant farm, and though you may not see 

 them leave the tree, you can always trace the course they 

 take by the very loud, almost musical " swish-swish " of 

 their wings that are remarkably heavy for the size of the 

 bird. 



Small doves {Turtur) that hardly differ from the brown 

 of the lately tilled soil get up almost at one's feet with a loud 

 clap of wings, causing a pair of wattled-eyed fly-catchers 

 {Diaphorophyia) to utter croaks of warning to a party of 

 small birds that they are piloting through the thicket. And 



