222 
SUGAR-BIRD. 
18 July, 
to be the same kind of Suiker-vogel (Sugar-bird) * which I had seen 
in the vicinity of Cape Town. Their elegance and beauty, added 
to their soft, delicate, warbling notes, engaged my admiration and 
attention for a long time ; and it was indeed with reluctance that I 
permitted my desire of having this bird in my collection, to over- 
come my natural feelings, and induce me to kill it. With much less 
hesitation, I plucked some of the flowers from which they had been 
sipping : it was the most showy plant at this time in bloom. I 
collected a few others f ; but it was not now the bloemtyd, as the 
boors express it, the flower-season, here. 
The rains, contrary to our expectations, had not yet fallen ; and, 
on that account, we found, wherever we came, only dry channels in- 
stead of rivers. This unlooked-for drought had already produced a 
melancholy, and a too visible, effect on our oxen. Lean and weary, 
they were not in a state for crossing the Bushman country ; and 
it was intended to have halted at this place for two or three days, to 
recruit their strength ; but in this plan we were disappointed. 
The scarcity of pasture and water, determined us to remove to a 
place about three miles further, pointed out on the map by the words 
Sugar-bird Station, where our spitting visitor assured us there was 
plenty of both. Here we were again disappointed : nothing was to 
be found but the dry bed of a rivulet, and a parched country all 
around, worse even than at the last station. 
No one doubted that the boor had intentionally given us a false 
account, in order to get rid of us, that our cattle might not deprive 
his flocks of their scanty herbage. It was, at the time, remarked by 
* 'Nectarinia clialyhea Certhia chalybea. Linn. Syst. ed. Gmel. vol. i. p. 475. — 
Le Sucrier d double collier, Le Vaill. Ois. d'Jfr. tome vi. pi. 178. 
f Convolvulus ' Hemimeris diffusa ? 
Gnaphalium Heliophila chamcEmelifolia 
Cotula nudicaulis ? Festuca 
Calendula amplexicaulis ? Salvia 
Cynoglossum hirsutum, Th. Medeola asparagoides, Linn. 
Hemimeris montana ? 
