94 KLOOF AND KARROO. 



cannot sufficiently admire the form and splendid 

 colouring of this noble bird. 



Thus, with these and other wild fowl, too 

 numerous to catalogue at length, and the various 

 francolins and bustards, of which more hereafter, 

 we have good store of "feather," as well as "fur," 

 with which to satisfy those cravings for sport 

 implanted in the breast of every one of us. 



But stroll where one will about these quiet 

 valleys and over these rugged hills, there is ever 

 something to interest one. Of small birds ; of 

 the thrushes and starlings, larks, finches of 

 innumerable species, butcher-birds, shrikes, fly- 

 catchers, warblers, swallows, buntings, cuckoos, 

 wheat-ears, colies, lories, honey-guides — which are 

 included in the great family of cuckoos — and other 

 varieties, we are for ever encountering some new 

 specimen ; and it would occupy all the time of a 

 professed naturalist, in a year or two of ardent 

 collecting, to enumerate and classify the many 

 beautiful feathered creatures we see around us. 



A notable starling, the green spreo {Juida phceni- 

 coptera), is often to be seen in large flocks ; its 

 colouring is very beautiful. The head, shoulders, 

 tail, rump, and upper parts of the legs, are of a 

 vivid bluish-green ; there is bright violet colouring 

 over the ears, and the shoulder coverts are decorated 

 with a showy stripe of red and violet. Once or 

 twice in our rides and walks we noticed the curious 

 orange-shouldered bunting, Vidua phcenicoptera of 

 Swainson, sometimes also called the Kaffrarian 

 grosbeak. The male of this species is famous for 

 its immensely long tail ; his colour is black, lit up 

 by deep-red shoulder markings. The female and, 



