COLONY OF BIRDS. 177 
trees in it, and a little before outspanning- passed 
through a range of low kopjes. This ' mopani ' is 
usually very heavy land, so called from the mopani 
trees (not unlike alders) which grow upon it. Of 
the fruit-trees referred to, one was my old glutinous 
friend of the Gwailo hunting veldt — plentiful, but not 
yet ripe. It is very woody, but when chewed exudes 
a fine glutinous gum. Another has a small fruit like 
a little rosy-cheeked apple, containing seeds, and 
something of the crab nature, but not at all acid. 
Another, which I should say was also of the apple 
kind, and like the last in taste and texture, was as 
large as a plum and of the same colour, and grew on 
a thick low bushy large-leaved tree. 
"In the evening, where we were outspanned, I 
found a large colony of birds established in three 
large nests (half-built, I think) in the branch of a tall 
tree. This is the noisy familiar bird I first met with 
at Tati."^ 
Proceeding forward on the following morning, 
still through the veldt of large mopani trees, and 
passing amongst numerous fine rocky kopjes — rising 
up on every side in bold craggy heaps from the level 
veldt, tree-covered like the latter wherever trees 
could find root — Frank Oates next crossed two or 
three small spruits, now dry, of which the largest was 
about five yards wide. At this there was a delay of 
about half an hour, caused by one of the waggons 
sticking in its sandy bed, and when he had crossed 
it he outspanned upon its bank. And here, as he 
1 The Rcd-billcd Black Weaver-bird, Tcxtor crythrofhynchics. 
N 
