African Game Trails 
161 
work, led to plantation after plantation of 
bananas and sweet potatoes, and clusters 
of thatched huts. 
In the afternoon, as the sun began to 
get well beyond the meridian, we usually 
sallied forth to hunt, under the guidance 
of some native who had come in to tell us 
where he had seen game that morning. 
The jungle was so thick in places and the 
grass was everywhere so long, that without 
such guidance there was little successful 
hunting to be done in only two or three 
hours. We might come back with a buck, 
iridescent green and purple, which looked 
like our grackles, but were kin to the bul¬ 
buls; and another bird, related to the 
shrikes, with bristly feathers on the rump, 
which was colored like a red-winged black¬ 
bird, black with red shoulders. Vultures 
were not plentiful, but the yellow-billed 
kites, true camp scavengers, were com¬ 
mon and tame, screaming as they cir¬ 
cled overhead, and catching bits of meat 
which were thrown in the air for them. 
The shrews and mice which the naturalists 
trapped around each camping place were 
or with two or three guinea fowl, or with 
nothing. 
There were a good many poisonous 
snakes; I killed a big puff-adder with thir¬ 
teen eggs inside it; and we also killed a 
squat, short-tailed viper, beautifully mot¬ 
tled, not eighteen inches long, but with a 
wide, flat head and a girth of body out of 
all proportion to its length; and another 
very poisonous and vicious snake, appar¬ 
ently of colubrine type, long and slender. 
The birds were an unceasing pleasure. 
White wagtails and yellow wagtails walked 
familiarly about us within a few feet, where- 
ever we halted and when we were in camp. 
Long-tailed, crested colys, with all four of 
their red toes pointed forward, clung to 
the sides of the big fruits at*'which they 
picked. White-headed swallows caught 
flies and gnats by our heads. There were 
large plantain eaters; and birds like small 
jays with yellow wattles round the eyes. 
There were boat-tailed birds, in color 
Vol. XLVIII.—iy 
kin to the species we had already obtained 
in East Africa, but in most cases there was 
a fairly well-marked difference; the jer- 
billes for instance had shorter tails, more 
like ordinary rats. Frogs with queer voices 
abounded in the marshes. Among the ants 
was one arboreal kind which made huge 
nests, shaped like beehives or rather like 
big gray bells, in the trees. Near the lake, 
by the way, there were Goliath beetles, as 
large as small rats. 
Ten days from Kampalla we crossed the 
little Kafu River, the black, smooth current 
twisting quickly along between beds of 
plumed papyrus. Beyond it we entered 
the native kingdom of Unyoro. It is part 
of the British protectorate of Uganda, but 
is separate from the native kingdom of 
Uganda, though its people in ethnic type 
and social development seem much the 
same. We halted for a day at Hoima, a 
spread-out little native town, pleasantly 
situated among hills, and surrounded by 
