ELMENTEITA IN FEBRUARY 
145 
flight and actions, with the fluttering descent, were pre¬ 
cisely similar. I also noticed here a tree-pipit descend¬ 
ing with the same hovering insect-like flight it uses at 
home during the nesting-season. Here, however, it was 
silent. Another of our small British migrants that we 
noticed on Lake Elmenteita was the wheatear. 
Impressive as had been the sight of monster pachy¬ 
derms still roaming this earth in flesh and blood, and 
not as extinct mammoths in some geological museum, 
yet the sight of these tiny British warblers here on the 
far equator, was scarcely less striking. 
AN AFRICAN LARK, OR “ LONG-CLAW ” (Macronyx CTOCeUS). 
Throat and lower parts, also eyebrow, golden-yellow. 
Following are my brother’s impressions of these days 
and nights on Lake Elmenteita— 
“ When the hippo had beaten us by daylight and 
we tried the alternative of a night-attack, some new 
sensations were experienced—sensations that cannot, 
perhaps, be entirely expressed in words unless the spirit 
of poetry be inborn. How intangible and weird is the 
environment as one sets forth at midnight with only 
the silver-fretted light of the moon as a guide ! One 
naturally holds the open ground, avoiding the deep 
shade of trees or banks, not only to save the risk of 
falling into pitfall or unseen obstacle, but by an un¬ 
conscious dread of the unknown that is hidden in dark¬ 
ness. So, too, one imagines that safety is better assured 
where two or three are gathered together. Few, in fact, 
would care to face alone the dangers of the wild African 
