220 SINGING-BIRDS. Chap. XVII. 



On Sunday, the 19th, both I and several of our party were 

 seized with fever, and I did nothing but toss about in my 

 little tent, with the thermometer above 90°, though this was 

 the beginning of winter, and my men had made as much 

 shade as possible by planting branches of trees all over it. 

 We have had, for the first time in my experience in Africa, 

 a cold wind from the north. The winds from that quarter 

 are generally hot, and those from the south cold, though they 

 seldom blow from either direction. 



The people of Katema are fond of singing-birds. One 

 pretty little songster, named " cabazo," a species of canary, is 

 kept in neatly-made cages, having traps on the top to entice 

 its still free companions. It is fed on the lotsa (Pennisdum 

 typhoidewii), which is largely cultivated as food for man, and 

 which the wild canaries attack as vigorously as the sparrows 

 do our fruit-trees. I was pleased to hear the long-forgotten 

 ■cry of the canaries in the woods, and I observed one warbling 

 forth its song, and swaying from side to side, as they do in 

 the cage. We saw also tame pigeons, having the real canary 

 colour on the breast with a tinge of green ; the back 

 yellowish green, with darker longitudinal bands meeting in 

 the centre; and a narrow dark band passing from the bill 

 over the eye and back to the bill again. 



The songsters here set up quite a merry chorus in the 

 mornings, and abound most near the villages. Some sing as 

 loudly as our thrushes, and the king-hunter (Halcyon Senegal- 

 ends) makes a clear whirring sound like that of a railway 

 guard's whistle. During the heat of the day they take their 

 siesta in the shadiest parts of the trees, but in the cool of the 

 evening they renew their pleasant melody. It is remarkable 

 that so man} r song-birds abound amid a general paucity of 

 other animal life. As we went forward we were struck by 

 the comparative absence of game and the larger kind of fowls : 

 the rivers contain very few fish : flies are not troublesome : 

 and mosquitoes are seldom so numerous as to disturb the 

 slumbers of a weary man. 



But though this region is free from common insect plagues 

 and from tsetse, it is much infested with spiders, somo of 

 which inflict severe and, according to report, even fatal stings. 

 I was on one occasion stung by a light-coloured spidei 



