ch. xii] HONEY-BIRDS 339 
boys had left the tree, so as to see exactly what the 
honey-bird did. The boys had smoked out the bees, 
and when they left the tree was still smoking. Through¬ 
out the process the honey-bird had stayed quietly in 
a neighbouring tree, occasionally uttering a single 
bubbling cluck. As soon as the boys left, it flew 
straight for the smoking bee tree, uttering a long trill, 
utterly different from the chattering noise made while 
trying to attract the attention of the men and lead 
them to the tree ; and not only did it eat the grubs, 
but it also ate the bees that were stupefied by the 
smoke. 
Next day we moved camp to the edge of a swamp 
about five miles from the river. Near the tents was one 
of the trees which, not knowing its real name, we called 
44 sausage tree the seeds or fruits are encased in a kind 
of hard gourd, the size of a giant sausage, which swings 
loosely at the end of a long tendril. The swamp was 
half or three-quarters of a mile across, with one or 
two ponds in the middle, from which we shot ducks. 
Francolins—delicious eating, as the ducks were also— 
uttered their grating calls near by ; while oribi and 
hartebeest were usually to be seen from the tents. The 
hartebeest, by the way, in its three forms, is much the 
commonest game animal of East Africa. 
A few miles beyond this swamp we suddenly came 
on a small herd of elephants in the open. There were 
eight cows and two calves, and they were moving 
slowly, feeding on the thorny tops of the scattered 
mimosas and of other bushes which were thornless. 
The eyesight of elephants is very bad ; I doubt whether 
they see more clearly than a rather near-sighted man; 
and we walked up to within seventy yards of these, 
slight though the cover was, so that Kermit could try 
