WITHIN A MILE OF JOHANNESBURG 



" THE Wemmer dam has been drained dry by the 

 droughts and mine pumps, and the spur- winged geese 

 and pink-bill teal of which we used to take toll a few 

 years ago have flown to other waters." 



The foregoing extract from the letter of a mining 

 engineer recalled to my mind many an enjoyable early 

 morning and evening spent among the different kinds 

 of fowl which used to frequent the small lagoon in question 

 some ten or twelve years ago. 



The Wemmer dam lies within a mile of Johannesburg, 

 and at the time of which I speak it was a fine, albeit 

 shallow, piece of w r ater, covering an area of perhaps 

 twenty acres, and being fringed on all sides with high 

 reeds, with clumps of the same, growing in different 

 parts of the lagoon, it afforded excellent cover to the 

 spur-wing geese, duck, pink-bill teal, coots, and other 

 species of wildfowl which resorted thereto in considerable 

 numbers. The spongy shores of the dam, as well as 

 the surrounding patches of spruit-intersected bog or 

 marshland, were the favourite feeding-grounds of common 

 and painted-snipe, greenshanks, avocets, pied plover, 

 sacred ibises, and other kinds of wading birds. Several 

 varieties of herons and cranes used also to frequent this 

 piece of water, amongst them grey, purple, and white 

 herons, crested cranes, and hammerkops. 



137 



