THROUGH THE KEDONG VALLEY, B.E.A. 161 
in lying on my back looking up at them that I witnessed a 
never-to-be-forgotten sight. A hawk shot out from the 
shelter of the cliff in pursuit of a swift which sought security 
by soaring up into a flock, many thousand strong, and dodging 
amongst them. Never for a moment did the hawk lose sight 
of its prey ; hither and thither amongst that mighty host 
they sped, and several times the swift only saved itself from 
the pursuing beak by a sudden doubling. Whilst this was 
going on, the swifts from all around were coming up, till such 
a mighty host of birds I never saw in my life ; the sound of 
their wings was like that of distant waves breaking on the 
shore, and the air was full of their whistlings. 
How long the pursuit lasted I cannot say, as I was too 
intent on watching it through, but finally the hawk gave up, 
and slowly sailed off to its niche in the cliff-face with a score 
or two of shrieking swifts in attendance. 
July 17, 1915. — Whilst the skinners were preparing the 
hyrax and birds, I strolled off and shot two male and a female 
bee-eater ( Mero'ps bullockoides). These birds hover in the 
air catching insects just like a flycatcher ; they also cling to 
the face of a cliff as a swift does. Immediately after lunch 
we started off through the gorge to a place where we could 
get water, the present camp being four miles from the nearest. 
The cliffs on our right became higher and higher, till I am 
sure they were at least three times as high as the highest points 
between Penarth and Lavernock. Sitting on a rock at the 
base of this towering cliff was a young eagle ( Aquila ra / pax) i 
and another was on a tree a few yards off. The former fell 
dead with a 0*22 bullet through the heart, and one of the boys 
clambered up and fetched it down. 
I disturbed a duiker buck in some scrub, and we saw a lot 
of zebra (Equus Burchelli Granti) and kongoni. We came 
across some lion spoor and a lot of leopard till after several 
hours’ marching we descended about a hundred feet down 
a rocky watercourse into a still narrower gorge which was 
crammed with vegetation, differing in this respect from the 
part we had just left. 
While camp was being pitched here I took a stroll on to 
try and get one of the lead-coloured pigeons which were very 
