COL ONY OF BIRDS. i 7 7 



through a range of low kopjes. This ' mopani ' is 

 usually very heavy land, so called from the mopani- 

 trees 1 (not unlike alders) which grow upon it. Of 

 the fruit-trees referred to, one was my old glutinous 

 friend of the Gwailo hunting-veldt — plentiful, but not 

 yet ripe. It is very woody, but when chewed exudes 

 a fine glutinous gum. Another has a small fruit like 

 a little rosy-cheeked apple, containing seeds, and 

 something of the crab nature, but not at all acid. 

 Another, which I should say was also of the apple 

 kind, and like the last in taste and texture, was as 

 large as a plum and of the same colour, and grew on 

 a thick low bushy large-leaved tree. 



"In the evening, where we were outspanned, I 

 found a large colony of birds established in three 

 large nests (half-built, I think) in the branch of a tall 

 tree. This is the noisy familiar bird I first met with 

 at Tati." 2 



Proceeding forward on the following morning, 

 still through the veldt of large mopani -trees, and 

 passing amongst numerous fine rocky kopjes — rising 

 up on every side in bold craggy heaps from the level 

 veldt, tree -covered like the latter wherever trees 

 could find root — Frank Oates next crossed two or 

 three small spruits, now dry, of which the largest 

 was about five yards wide. At this there was a delay 

 of about half an hour, caused by one of the waggons 

 sticking in its sandy bed, and when he had crossed 

 it he outspanned upon its bank. And here, as he 



1 Bauhinia. 

 2 The Red-billed Black Weaver-bird, Textor erythrorhynchus. 



N 



