GAME-BIRDS OF SOUTH AFRICA 



It is said that they can at times be approached by the 

 weU-known plan of riding round them, although my informant, 

 Sergt, Davies, has had little luck in obtaining them either 

 by this or any other method. A friend of his, who has shot 

 a good many, states that the largest he shot was a cock 

 weighing 17| lb. two days after being shot. A larger one 

 killed near Lusikisiki, Pondoland, weighed 25 lb., and was 

 very fat, 



I believe these birds feed mostly at night or late in the 

 evening and early in the morning ; during the heat of the 

 day they lie up in long grass. They feed on lizards, locusts, 

 beetles, field-mice, and so forth. 



Mr. Sclater states that they are rather silent birds, but 

 sometimes make a low, melodious, humming noise in the 

 morning and evening, whUe during the breeding-season the 

 cock gives vent to a loud, far-resounding " boom," something 

 like that of a Bittern ; at this period also the cocks display 

 themselves before the females, expanding their throats 

 enormously and turning their feathers back ; they then strut 

 about and utter their booming noise. 



Mr. Sclater further writes that Ayres found the eggs 

 generally at the top of a hill and laid in a bare depression 

 scratched out of the earth, though sometimes a wisp of grass 

 was added. 



The eggs are two in number and resemble those of 

 0. ludwigi ; those in the South African Museum are oval 

 and pale brown, washed, rather than blotched, with a slightly 

 darker shade of the same colour; they measure 2.90 by 2.10. 



The birds I shot in South Africa were particularly good- 

 eating, but the same species in British East Africa was coarse 

 and tough, with a sUght, but unpleasant, flavour. 



8 



