21 6 REPORT 
evidence a sense of the jokeful we ever beheld. We 
once saw some twenty nearly full-grown birds waltzing 
together. They began with a sort of sidling slow 
revolution on their toes, moving their wings gently up 
and down, and presently they seemed to get into the 
spirit of the thing without the aid of any fiddler that 
we saw, and spun round at a rate that would have 
astonished any one but a dancing dervish. In dancing 
they swept round and round without ever coming into 
contact with each other. Our fifty-eight young friends 
soon seemed anxious to make our acquaintance, or per- 
haps more especially to see if there were any mealies, 
and they came up all round us, some two or three at a 
time poking their little and long necks right into one's 
face. Quite docile and quiet, yet they seemed very 
inquisitive, and we should fully have expected, had 
we indulged in such vanities, to have seen our diamond 
breast-pin disappear, as a specially valuable stone to 
furnish grinding power for the gizzard of the bird ' wot 
prigged it.' 'Tis a queer feeling to be in the middle 
and under the inspection of some fifty pair of eyes or 
more, with a good sharp bill between each pair that 
could easily appropriate — say borrow — any little thing 
they take a fancy to. 'Twas queer, but it was 
most satisfactory, for here were birds two years old, 
machine hatched, and in health, size, and quality, 
everything that could be desired. 
<< This completed our round of observation, in which 
we saw a good many contrivances for feeding, plucking, 
and general management, the result of much thought and 
patient investigation. Since the farm has had no sheep 
on it, the veld has very much improved, and no doubt 
is still progressing in the same satisfactory direction. 
