THE GAME BIRDS OF CAPE COLONY. 309 



at great distances by its noisy, clamouring call. It 

 is the largest of its genus, and is a fine game bird, 

 measuring some fifteen or sixteen inches in length. 

 Its general colour is a dark brown, but each feather is 

 marked with narrow whitish lines, which concentrate 

 at the shaft. The chin and throat are white, and the 

 top of the head quite a blackish brown ; the brown 

 neck feathers have white edges, which impart a 

 singular appearance to this bird ; while the stomach 

 and side feathers are slightly speckled with white, 

 and have a broadish white line running down the 

 centre. The only objection, that I am aware of, that 

 can be urged against Cape game birds when in the 

 field, is that they are often much more troublesome 

 to flush than feathered game in England. They will 

 sometimes lie absolutely like stones, and have to 

 be kicked up ; or, especially in the case of the 

 pheasant and the guinea-fowl, they will run like 

 hares. The first of these peculiarities will, to 

 the moderate shot, not be thought altogether 

 inconvenient, for a bird that rises at your feet, as a 

 rule, is not difficult to account for, if your powder be 

 anything like straight. But these francolins are, in 

 one respect, even worse sinners than their brethren, 

 for they have a very common habit of perching 

 amongst bushes and low trees, and in dense jungle ; 

 they are, therefore, exceedingly difficult to drive out. 

 Yet even with these drawbacks, if you do not object 

 to early rising — and at the Cape this is a habit you 

 soon learn to acquire — and will go forth at four 

 o'clock, or thereabouts, you will certainly find the 

 pheasants feeding upon open ground, and especially 

 in the vicinity of water-courses or moist low-lying 

 soil. Kolben, who sojourned at the Cape between 



