516 
African Game Trails 
colored, others remarkable because of the 
elaborate nests they built by communities 
among the trees. There were many kinds 
of shrikes, some of them big, parti-colored 
birds, almost like magpies, and with a 
kestrel-like habit of hovering in the air over 
one spot; others very small and prettily 
colored. There was a little red-billed finch 
with its outer tail feathers several times the 
length of its head and body. There was a 
little emerald cuckoo, and a tiny thing, a 
barbet, that looked exactly like a kingfisher 
four inches long. Eared owls flew up from 
the reeds and grass. There were big, rest¬ 
less, wonderfully colored plantain-eaters in 
the woods; and hornbills, with strange 
swollen beaks'.' A truelark, colored like our 
meadow-lark (to which it is in no way re¬ 
lated) sang from bushes; but the clapper- 
lark made its curious clapping sounds (ap¬ 
parently with its wings, like a ruffed grouse) 
while it zigzagged in the air. Little pipits 
sang overhead like our Missouri sky-larks. 
There were night-jars; and doves of vari¬ 
ous kinds, one of which uttered a series of 
notes slightly resembling the call of our 
whippoorwill or chuckwills widow. The 
beautiful little sunbirds were the most gor¬ 
geous of all. Then there were bustards, 
great and small, and snake-eating secretary 
birds, on the plains; and francolins, and 
African spur fowl with brilliant naked 
throats, and sand grouse that flew in packs 
uttering guttural notes. The wealth of bird 
life was bewildering. There was not much 
bird music, judged by the standards of a 
temperate climate; but the bulbuls, and 
one or two warblers, sang very sweetly. The 
naturalists caught shrews and mice in their 
traps; mole rats with velvety fur, which 
burrowed like our pocket gophers; rats 
that lived in holes like those of our kanga¬ 
roo rat; and one mouse that was striped 
like our striped gopher. There were conies 
among the rocks on the hills; they looked 
like squat, heavy woodchucks, but their 
teeth were somewhat like those of a wee 
rhinoceros, and they had little hoof-like 
nails instead of claws. There were civets 
and wildcats and things like a small mon¬ 
goose. But the most interesting mammal 
we saw was a brilliantly colored yellow and 
blue, or yellow and slate, bat, which we put 
up one day while beating through a ravine. 
