on Aviculture in South Africa.



225



with them for a long time, too long my household said, for they

had the most dreadful alarm-note, which went off at all hours of

the night, and often brought me out with my gun to look for the

cause of trouble. Generally there wasn’t any, and I got very

tired of this, and after offering them to all my bird friends, who

sometimes accepted them but always returned them, I let them


go-


P. mahali is however a very interesting species, having no

seasonal change of plumage and quite a cheerful song, but being

as big as a Thrush and very powerful and pugnacious it is not

fitted for an aviary which contains smaller species.


On the 20th of last April I was shooting Quail in some

longish grass when three birds got up that I thought were

Rufous Coursers. I did not fire at them and they settled quite

close ; when I flushed them again, however, only two rose. I

looked about and suddenly saw a small speckled bird crouched

on the grass, with its neck stretched out straight in front of it

along the ground, in the same attitude in which the young

Thicknee is stuffed in the Museum at South Kensington.


Camp was quite near, and I made the little fellow comfort¬

able in a big biscuit tin with some grass to sit on and a butterfly

net over the top to prevent his escape. He got home to my

aviary safely and is now ridiculously tame. Mealworms and

chopped meat were forced down his throat every day for about a

week, when he suddenly learnt to feed himself and took well to

Century food. By July 1st he got his adult plumage, and to my

great surprise turned out to be the much rarer Double-bauded

Courser ( Rhinoptilus bicinctus ); all the same I am almost certain

he was accompanied by two old Red Coursers ( Cursorius rufus).

When first caught he simply swarmed with bird lice, and hand¬

ling him was a most unpleasant job. I had to catch him a few

days ago, however, and he seemed quite free of them. At the

present date, Feb. 10th, 1906, he is still alive and well and in

perfect plumage. I got a second Courser some months later, but

the original bird promptly scalped him or her. Every night he

treats us to a sort of song, a long, shrill, rattling call note, which

sounds so loud as to be out of all proportion to the bird that

gives utterance to it.



