1811. 
ELAND, RHINOCEROS, AND ELEPHANT-BIRDS. 
245 
a hen's egg, it possessed no unpleasant, nor otherwise remarkable, 
taste. 
August 1st. Very few plants were at this time to be met with 
here, and there was little temptation to extend my walks far from 
the house ; especially as I found, in putting the numbered labels to 
those I had already collected, and in arranging them in the Geogra- 
phical Catalogue, sufficient employment in the waggon. I here 
added to it but fourteen numbers *, among which was a Fumitory so 
exceedingly like an English species, as hardly to be distinguished 
from it. 
A beautiful green Sugar-bh^d f frequented the thorn-trees, and 
in splendid plumage, surpassed all the other birds of the place. 
Speelman, who always brought home any thing which appeared to 
him curious, one day came with a bird :j: which he had taken out of 
its hole in the side of a high and abrupt earthy bank. The noise 
it made, was something like that produced by filing the teeth of a 
saw. The habits of this bird, in hollowing out for itself, a hole in 
the earth, instead of one in the trunk of a tree, is a singular anomaly 
in the woodpecker tribe. The Eland-vogel § which was procured 
here, is a handsome bird, and may easily be discovered by its re- 
markable clear and loud note. Its original name was given in the 
language of the Hottentots, who believe that it is an attendant on 
the antelope called Eland (Antilope Oreas) ; or at least, that it is an 
indication of that animal being not far off. For the same reason, 
they distinguish also a Rhenoster-vogel and an OUfants-vogel ; but 
whatever might have been believed of these birds formerly, they 
* Cysticapnos Africana Hemimeris, 3 species 
Fumaria capreolata ? Nemesia 
Lepidium subdentatum, B. C. G. 1299. Oxalis 
Staj)elia pillfera Bromiis 
Cineraria lobata Pteronia. 
Morea collina 
\ Ccrthia [Nectarinia) famosa, L. Syst- Nat. 
\ Pirns terrestris, B. — Le Pic Laboureur. — Le Vaill. Ois. d'Af'r. pi. 
§ Lanius — Turdus Zeylonus of Linne. — Le Vaill. Ois. d'Afr. pi. 67. f. 
254. 
1 & 2. 
where, 
in consequence of mistaking its colonial name, it is called " Eyland-vogel" or Island bird. 
