214 BIRDS. — DEAD ox. — HIDE-SHOES. 16 July, 
(Sparrow) *, a bird of about the size of the common sparrow, hav- 
ing red feet, a long tail, and a cinereous brown-coloured plum- 
age ; the Capoc-vogel (Cotton-bird) f , so called on account of its 
curious bottle-shaped nest, built of the cotton-like down of certain 
plants ; its manners and singing very much resemble those of the 
common wren : and a kind of finch of a ferrugineous brown color, 
having a white collar and black head. 
One of the missionaries' oxen, which was much worn out by 
fatigue and sickness, died at this place. Its flesh, not being con- 
sidered eatable, was left on the spot where it fell, as food for the 
crows and vultures ; a food with which they are too often supplied 
by the passage of this dreary Karro, where, from want of water and 
pasturage, many an ox has fallen a sacrifice in the service of man. 
The Hottentots of our party soon took off the hide, which they 
cut in small pieces, for the purpose of making velschoen § (hide- 
shoes), as every man is his own shoemaker. With this view, these 
pieces, after their animal juices have been allowed to dry out, are 
greased, and beaten or hammered, till half tawed, or reduced nearly 
to the state of leather. The hide of an ox being too thick for any 
other part than the sole, they use for the upper-leathers the skin of 
goats, or any other kind equally pliable. They are sewed together 
with thread made of the sinews |j, taken from each side of the back- 
bone of sheep or goats, in such a manner that the stitches are all on the 
inside, and which, passing but half through the sole, never wear out 
or break away. There is another mode of making the hide-shoe, much 
more simple, as consisting of a single piece, and formed without any 
* Perhaps Muts-vogel (Cap-bird), from its crest; or, possibly, Muis-vogel (Mouse- 
bird). Colitis erijthropus of Linnteus; Le Coliou d dos blanc of that beautiful work by 
Le Vaillant, " UHistoire Naturelle des Oiseaux d''Afrique" planche 257. 
The genus Colius appears, in a Natural arrangement, to have some affinity with the 
Corytha'ix of Illiger ; Cuculus Persa of Linnteus. 
f Malnrus of Ciiv. ; Motacilla macroiira. Linn. Syst. Nat. ed. Gmel. vol. i. p. 953.; 
Le Capocicr, Le Vaill. Ois. d'Jfr. pi. 130. 
f Fringilla ,- Loxia, Linn. 
§ Or, as some pronounce it, Veld-schoen (Country-shoes). 
11 The Longissimus dorsi^ and the Spinalis dorsi. 
