194 THE MIGRATION OF HIRUNDO RUSTICA. 



African Finch, merrily join. The male of this bird {Chera 

 procne) adorns itself during the breeding season with a vel- 

 vet-black coat, scarlet epaulettes, and an elongated tail, over 

 a foot long, though the body of the bird is only about as 

 large as that of a Thrush ; the female being dressed in a 

 darker and lighter shaded brown, the same color the male 

 assumes during the winter, denoting its sex by the faded 

 epaulettes only, which mark so brightly the black festive sum- 

 mer coat. All the noise made by these Passeres conirostres 

 in unison with the whistling and the songs of real Oscines 

 {Salicaria, Sylvia, Pratincola and others), and interrupted 

 by the shrieks and squabbles, more or less loud and shrill, of 

 the GrallcB and Natatores, offers a natural concert of a 

 peculiar kind, hardly to be reproduced by the human 

 tongue or by the most skilful pen. For moments only, when 

 the rapacious Milvus cegyptiacus throws a shadow from his 

 large wings upon the waters, the cries of love and enmity 

 cease, to be renewed with the same vigor as soon as the 

 rapacious bird of prey has disappeared. From all sides, from 

 near and far, one by one, in pairs, in whole families, and 

 in long lines or wedge-shaped arrays, Stanley Cranes 

 {Tdraptc7'yx Stanley amis), the beautiful Kafir or Crested 

 Cranes {Balearica rcgulorum), and many species of Herons, 

 the small and large white, the gray, the purple, the black- 

 necked, and the Goliath, {Ardca garzetta, A. egretta, A. 

 cincrea, A. purpurea, A. atricapilla and A. goliath), also 

 white and black Storks (C alba and C. nigra), are returning 

 to their sleeping-place. Wild Geese and Ducks, Plovers 

 {Chettusia coronata, Hoplopterus speciosus and others), even a 

 pair of Hammerkopfs {Scopus umbretta), which all kept the 

 whole or a part of the day in the vicinity of the marsh, are 

 now coming along, walking slowly and still grazing like the 

 geese and ducks, or running and playing (like Chettusia 

 coronata^, or taking short flights, all claiming a place in the 

 waters of the pool. In other parts of South Africa, where 

 no marshes are to be found, but large and very shallow salt 



