1866.] MARABOU'S NEST. IIUMMIXG-BIRDS. 157 



Mparawe this morning. The affair was a chase of a hyaena, 

 but everything- is Mazitu ! The Babisa came here, but were 

 surrounded and nearly all cut off. Muasi was so eager to 

 be off with a party to return the attack on the Mazitu, 

 that, when deputed by the headman to give us a guide, 

 he got the man to turn at the first village, so we had to 

 go on without guides, and made about due north. 



llth December. — We are now detained in the forest, at a 

 place called Chonde Forest, by set-in rains. It rains every 

 day, and generally in the afternoon ; but the country is not 

 wetted till the " set-in " rains commence ; the cracks in the 

 soil then fill up and everything rushes up with astonishing- 

 rapidity ; the grass is quite crisp and soft. After the fine- 

 grained schist, we came on granite with large flakes of talc 

 in it. This forest is of good-sized trees, many of them 

 mopane. The birds now make much melody and noise — 

 all intent on building. 



\2th December. — Across an undulating forest country north 

 Ave got a man to show us the way, if a pathless forest can so 

 be called. We used a game-path as long as it ran north, 

 but left it when it deviated, and rested under a baobab- 

 tree with a marabou's nest — a bundle of sticks on a branch ; 

 the young ones uttered a hard chuck, chuck, when the old 

 ones flew over them. A sun-bird, with bright scarlet throat 

 and breast, had its nest on another branch, it was formed 

 like the weaver's nest, but without a tube. I observed the 

 dam picking out insects from the bark and leaves of the 

 baobab, keeping on the wing the while : it would thus 

 appear to be insectivorous as well as a honey-bibber. Much 

 spoor of elands, zebras, gnus, kamas, pallahs, buffaloes, reed- 

 bucks, with tsetse, their parasites. 



13th December. — Reached the Tokosusi, Avhich is said to 

 rise at Nombe Eume, about twenty yards wide and knee 

 deep, swollen by the rains : it had left a cake of black tena- 

 cious mud on its banks. Here I got a pallah antelope, and 



