DR. EMIL HOLUB. 195 



lakes,* all the wading and swimming birds of the neighbor- 

 hood flock every evening to these waters, so as to avoid 

 nightly attacks of the many small robbers, as jackals, hyenas, 

 earthwolves and polecats, which infest these plains of the 

 South African high plateau. 



During these observations of ours an hour has passed ; 

 the sun's golden disk is just touching the western horizon ; 

 in the east the shadows of the coming night are visible. As 

 our eyes glance over the blue sky above, adorned here and 

 there with a few light, feathery clouds, glad in the golden- 

 crimson of the sun's last farewell greetings, we perceive in 

 the far distance, near the horizon and on all sides, a few 

 darkish spots. Is it a delusion or not that they come 

 nearer ? We look hither and thither and it seems as if these 

 spots become larger; they appear to approach. And they 

 are approaching ; they darken and are rapidly increasing in 

 their breadth. Are they not swarms of locusts ? Locusts ? 

 Hardly possible ! No, they are not these ravenous insects. 

 The locusts come with the wind and pass over in a single 

 dark cloud, darkest just above the ground ; but those ap- 

 proaching clouds come from all directions. Some fly very 

 high in the air, others from twenty to fifty yards high, others 

 again move — as you can see — along the wavy grass ; and 

 suddenly this one cloud — now surely it is a swarm of birds 

 — swerves aloft. Birds ! Behold, — are they all birds, these 

 approaching clouds ? Yes, they are, and, to our great sur- 

 prise, small, dark birds. We watch two of these large 

 swarms, which from due north are making straight for us. 

 They pass abreast for a few moments ; suddenly the one to 

 the left turns high up, lowers itself just as suddenly, and 

 now both swarms, turning toward each other, have united in 



* Up to several miles in diameter, and from one to two and a half feet 

 deep in the centre, some with a few sweet water springs on their banks. 

 They are everywhere in country which has no communication with the 

 ocean, and are commonly called " saltpans," being the lowest places in 

 southern portions of the high plateau — the reservoir for rain-water. 



