V 
37^ TRAVELS IN 
and I remarked in its geftures and cry a great 
affinity with thofe of the bird known to orni- 
thologifts under the name of the cuculus indU 
caior ; but it was much larger than thofe which 
I had before feen. My Hottentots, who re- 
fpe£l it on account of the fervices which it * 
renders them, begged me to fpare it. A 
new fpecies, however, was to be added to my 
colledion, and I killed it. This bird is of 
the genus of the common indicator^ but larger, 
and different in its plumage ; it is a variety 
of it. 
I did more afterwards, I killed three dif- 
ferent fpecies of thefe birds, all equally indi- 
cators. 
' The favages of Africa know them well, and 
treat them as deities. They live only on ho- 
ney or wax ; and it is they that involuntarily 
' point out to them where they will find abun- 
dant repofitories of both. 
Naturalifts, for what reafon I know not, 
place the Indicator among the cuckoos ; it has 
no relation, however, to this genus, but in the 
conformation of its feet ; and being different 
by other phyfical characters, it is much more 
fo by its manner of living. At the rifk of 
being expofed to an anathema from the cabi- 
' nets 
