112 A Breath from the Veldt 



soared in the air, within thirty -five yards of me, I could observe their 

 movements with perfect accuracy, so I could not possibly mistake what I 

 saw. Others who may hereafter turn their attention to these clowns of 

 the sky will, I am sure, endorse my remarks. I should not venture to 

 make this statement if I had only seen one bird do this extraordinary feat ; 

 but I saw several (generally males) do so after being flushed, both during 

 my two days amongst them on going up country and again on returning, 

 and the performance struck me as being one of the most wonderful things in 

 bird life I have ever seen. Some idea of the movements of this bustard may 

 be gathered from my sketch. 



Another fact which strongly inclines me to believe this bird to be a 

 new species is that the plumage of the male which I shot on my return 

 journey six months later was identically the same as that of the bird which 

 I killed when trekking up country. Now if the birds were, as Dr. Sharpe 

 thinks, immatures of a known species, during a lapse of six months a very 

 perceptible difference in the plumage would assuredly have taken place. 

 In Messrs. Eglinton and Nichol's handbook there is recorded an instance of 

 a bush khoorhan being shot when in the act of turning a back-somersault ; 

 but I am inclined to think that the bird may have been one of the species 

 as to which Dr. Sharpe and I are at loggerheads. Though most of the 

 South African birds are well known, so little attention seems to have been 

 paid to their habits that there is still much to be learnt about the interesting 

 little ways of even the commonest species. 



2yd May, Tuesday. — On this great plateau stretching from Pietersberg 

 to the last point of the Zoutpansberg there is very little game of any sort ; 

 after the first two days, when I found the bustards in question plentiful, I 

 had hard work to keep the pot boiling in the way of fresh, meat. Water 

 was also scarce, brackish and undrinkable, save when made into tea or coffee ; 

 the grass too was almost entirely destroyed by the locusts, and the oxen had 

 to be carefully handled, though we were racing our best to get on, as a string 

 of waggons belonging to traders, hunters, etc., was close behind. The reports 

 one hears on the road up to Mashonaland are both startling and wonderful — 

 if true. But Dutchmen, I have long since learnt, are the most credulous 

 people in the world. Every day either Teenie, Piet, Tace, or Hert came 

 to me with some ghastly tale of what was going on up country. The game 

 licence ranges from £,io to ^Taoo a man, according to the lying capacity of 

 my informant ; fever never was so bad, and every one at the drift has turned 



