38o EASTERN ETHIOPIA xxx 



When the intruder goes away it hiughs, and cries : — 

 I have told you lies. 



When the ground hornbill is foraging, the hen bird 

 calls to her mate : — 



Peep, peep into those holes. 



The cock replies : — 



I have looked, I have looked, there is nothing. 



People with ideas of this kind are not lacking in 

 imagination. iEsop was a freed slave, probably an 

 Ethiopian : who can deny that a story-teller with the 

 genius of iEsop or of Krylof may not exist in a Nandi 

 village to-day. 



There are sounds made by l:)irds in Eastern Ethiopia 

 which should delight English ears. The diminutive 

 long-tailed dove uttering its plaintive note in the woods 

 of the Kikuyu country and around the lakes of the Rift 

 Valley in the early morning is most delightful. The 

 rinoins; noises of the touracos in the wood are like 



o o 



human voices. Some of the birds have flute-like notes ; 

 those of the organ shrike denote the neighbourhood of 

 water, and its bell sound makes the listener fancy that 

 a blacksmith is working near at hand. There are many 

 species of larks in the Ethiopian region, and some of 

 them sino-. In British East Africa one, known as 

 Fischer's Bush Lark, makes a peculiar noise with its 

 wings. In the breeding-season as the bird soars it 

 produces a peculiar rattling sound. Schillings compares 

 it to the sharp rhythmical clapping sound produced 

 by rattling together small pieces of lath The sound, 

 audible a long distance, is very deceiving, for it 

 appears to come from a wood near at hand, but the 

 l)ird is high in the air. 



A bird known as the Coucal, or Lark-heeled Cuckoo 

 (because of the long spur on its hind toe like that of the 

 lark), haunts papyrus swamps. It is clumsy on the wing 



