'T- 



224 



GIRAFFE HUNTING. 



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r 



doubt but that these wise beasts winded their natural 

 enemies. 



The guinea-fowls, francoHns, and Hottentot duck 

 that frequented this water about sunset were some- 

 thing marvellous for numbers. Where the last- 

 named come from, and how they assemble about a 

 pond that has been so lately formed by the rains, is 

 one of those incomprehensible things that has puzzled 

 many wiser heads than mine. Is it sight, or scent, 

 that brings these broad-bills to these evanescent 

 splashes of water ? I agree with Andersson, both on 

 this point and in regard to the vultures, that to the 

 first-mentioned sense is to be attributed these desul- 

 tory visits. Sand grouse also streamed over the 

 waggons in almost continuous flights, making direct 

 for the water ; even after night had set in I could 

 hear their musical, plaintive call when it was too 

 dark to distinguish the vocalists. But soon the 

 jackals struck up their merry tittering yelps, now and 

 then added to by the doleful, complaining call of the 

 hyaena. Such a challenge — for so my dogs regarded 

 it — brought every member of my pack from under 

 the waggons, when each endeavoured to outrival his 

 comrade in the volume of the angry threats that they 

 hurled back at their antagonists. I have written it 

 before, I cannot help writing it again, that there is a 

 charm in such surroundings, that never fail to impress 

 the lover of nature with ecstatic feelings of admira- 

 tion for the beauties and fascinations of the earth as.it 

 exists, when uncontaminated by civilization and the 

 extermination of the aboriginal brute creation that 

 are certain to follow in the wake of colonization. 



In these solitudes strange noises are to be heard the 

 night through ; some appear to emanate from creatures 

 close at hand, others to orginate in far-distant space. 

 The producers of these calls are generally the pretty 

 little red-legged plover, the great crested toucan, or 

 the black and white cuckoo, as well as different species 



