ENDERIT RIVER AND LAKE NAKURU 19 
cling to the steeps above or straggle irregular across the 
plain, while crag and mountain-ridge fill in the back¬ 
ground. Species differ, but form remains not dissimilar. 
This morning, ere yet the dawn was fully established, 
a w T eird melody caught my ear, and, looking from the 
tent, I saw its author on the topmost bough of an acacia 
—a glossy starling-like bird with deeply-forked tail. 
This was a drongo (Dicrurus musicus ), one of the 
shrike family, and a warrior to boot, albeit a songster; 
for never a kite or crow, not even an eagle, venturing 
near our camp, was immune from its furious onslaught. 1 
While sipping the matutinal coffee I could actually see 
herds of wild animals peacefully grazing within view 
from my camp-bed! On putting the glass on to these, 
I found they included zebras and Thomson’s gazelles; 
while further away the ruddy pelts of hartebeests were 
distinguishable. 
The latter, in this district, are the rather scarce 
Neumann’s hartebeest ( Bubalis neumanni ), and to 
secure specimens of these formed our first and main 
objective on the Enderit. 
The first animal actually shot on the Enderit, how¬ 
ever, was a zebra, and, while skinning proceeded, I 
enjoyed watching that ever-wondrous spectacle of wild 
African life, the assembling of the carnivora. Life was 
hardly extinct ere dark shadows passed and repassed on 
the sere grass hard by. Looking upwards, the heavens 
were flecked with circling hordes. Soon the smaller 
vultures (dark-brown neophrons with livid pink faces) 
descended with collapsed wings, alighting with resonant 
rush all around us, many within thirty yards. Then 
the huge carrion-vultures (the African griffon, Pseudo¬ 
gyps africanus, deep brown with conspicuous white 
patches on lower body, and the still blacker Eared 
vulture, Lophogyps auricularis, with red ear-lobes) 
1 A drongo will remain perched by the hour on a bough, 
watching for passing insects. Presently he darts down, catches one, 
sometimes two or three in rapid succession, then returns to his post, 
exactly as our flycatchers do at home. 
