THE ZooLoGIstT—APRIL, 1876. 4865 
Shorteared Owl (Otus brachyotus).—Very numerous in Novem- 
ber and December, great numbers finding their way to the bird- 
stuffers, being in demand for making into fire-screens. 
Fieldjares and Redwings.—Fieldfares and redwings have been 
unusually scarce this winter. 
W. JEFFERY. 
Ratham, Chichester, February 21, 1876. 
Hereditary Hippopotamus Hunters of the Loangwa. 
Ir is so seldom that we find much in the journals of African 
explorers, except the wearisome record of bargaining for cloth and 
beads with avaricious and treacherous tribes, that I thought the 
following description of hippopotamus hunting, the hereditary 
occupation of a tribe in Central Africa, might be acceptable to 
the readers of the ‘ Zoologist.’ It is from the pen of the late 
Dr. Livingstone,* and seems to depict the native African as some- 
what higher in the manly characteristics of a savage life than we 
have been accustomed to regard him. It appears to have been 
written at Unyanyembé on the 7th July, 1872; but the doctor 
crossed the Loangwa, a northern tributary of the Zambesi, on the 
15th December, 1866, in about lat. 12° 45’ S., long. 32° 10’ E., 
when and where, apparently, the hunters were met with. It is to 
be regretted that we have such meagre accounts of the domestic 
character of the members of this tribe, the men of which display 
great courage in their daily pursuits; whose bodies are finely 
proportioned and whose muscles are thoroughly developed—two 
characters which are probably largely dependent on the forced 
exercise to both lungs and muscles, in their frequent under-water 
swimming, necessitated by the destruction of their canoes and by 
the revengeful anger of their prey. It is notable that the members 
of the tribe bear entirely good characters amongst their neighbours, 
and that the women are tillers of the soil—_F. W. F. 
“At the Loangwa of Zumbo we came to a party of hereditary 
hippopotamus hunters, called Makombwé or Akombwé. They 
follow no other occupation, but when their game is getting scanty 
at one spot they remove to some other part of the Loangwa, 
Zambesi, or Shiré, and build temporary huts on an island, where 
their women cultivate patches: the flesh of the animals they kill is 
* «The Last Journals of David Livingstone.’ 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1874. See 
yol. ip. 159, and vol. ii., p. 206. 
‘ 
