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Capt. Boyd R. Horsbrugh,



FIELD NOTES FROM BLOEMFONTEIN.


By Captain Boyd R. Horsbrugh, D.S.C., M.B.O.U.


I will try and send a few notes on birds as observed here

from month to month, and will particularly endeavour to give

some help to brother ornithologists who are keeping S. African

species at home.


The house I am living in at present is on a flat-topped hill

or kopje overlooking the town. The rocky hillsides are scantily

covered with various species of scrubby bushes and low-growing

trees, which manage to exist in spite of a nearly complete

absence of soil, and with very little moisture, save in the swnmer

months of November, December, January, and February, when

the rains occur.


The flat top of the kopje is haunted every morning by

several family parties of the Red Courser ( Cursorms rufiis) and

Rhinoptilus bicinctics, and I have noticed that both species prefer

the open ground and carefully avoid bushes. They both have a

habit of taking short runs and then standing stock still, just as a

Blackbird does on a lawn at home, save that the latter hops.

They are extremely fast on the wing, and the Red Coursers utter

a soft cry of ‘ gluck,’ ‘ gluck ’ when in flight, very like that of the

Namaqua Sand-Grouse ( Pterocles namaqicus).


The Red Coursers ( Cursorms rufzis) are now breeding.

The easiest way to find the eggs is to canter over any rise on the

veldt, and when you arrive on the top, cast a quick glance to

right and left, and if a Courser is sitting it will lift its wings

stiffly over its back to their full length before rising. You can

then ride at once to the spot and find the two lovely eggs lying

on the bare ground, without the smallest vestige of nest. The

eggs very much resemble in colour certain varieties of those of

the Red Grouse.


During the last few days huge flocks, numbering many

thousands, of the S. African Pratincole ( Glareola melanoptera)

have passed swiftly over the house in one direction, and have

returned going to roost in the opposite direction in the evening.


I shot an adult cock and an immature bird the first day,

but have not bothered them since. They are known locally as



