on some Field Notes in South Africa. 97


breeding season. They kept me awake half the night talking to

each other or swearing at me, I don’t know which ; and, as soon

as it got grey dawn, a pair, locked together and fighting like

bull-terriers, fell with a thump and a flutter near by, and went at

it hammer and tongs, making the feathers fairly fly. When nearly

exhausted they flew off, only to be imitated by various other pairs

of combatants. I doubt if I have ever met a more quarrelsome

little bird.


The Sociable Weaver Bird (Philcelerus sodas) I saw

breeding once, a nest about the size of half an average haystack,

riddled with holes, out of which the birds were swarming as we

passed. The tree was a big acacia-thorn and I had no time to

investigate it. I saw aifother nest the following year, on the top

of which the Boers had hidden very nearly two tons of maize

and pumpkins. When I reached it it had been set on fire by

some zealous yeomen, it being part of their duty to destroy any

food supply of the enemy. As this was not the breeding time no

great harm was done, but while I watched it burn a snake

came tumbling out of it, to be quickly followed by another, so

that birds’-nesting in Africa is not without its risks.


The Tong-tailed Whydali (Chera progne) is to be seen

everywhere, and the male bird with his peculiar floating flight

always reminded me of the males of the Red and the Yellow

Caffrefink, to which of course he is nearly related. There is

no reason why C. progne should not be freely imported; in the

Western Transvaal there must be thousands and thousands.

Some days, on an eight-hour march, there was never a minute

when there were not at least half a dozen in sight.


In some parts of the Magaliesberg another sort of Whydah

occurred, a sort of fawn-coloured bird with two very long pin-

wire-like tail feathers. He is not shown in Dr. Butler’s “ Foreign

Finches in Captivity,” but I saw a nice specimen in the Western

Aviary in the Zoo a few weeks ago. In these same mountains I

often saw a bird which I now know to be the Pied Babbling

Thrush (Crateropus bicolor) ; it had the same sort of habits as the

“Seven Sisters” of India; about a dozen get into a bush and

make a fearful racket, and, at the last minute, when you are a few



