XXX TAILS AND WINGS AS NUPTIAL LIVERY 377 
territory. ” Our common English blackbird is very 
pugnacious in regard to trespassers along his hedge and 
ditch. 
Sunbirds are very fond of the tree-lobelias. When 
Count Teleki made an ascent of Kenia and had attained 
an altitude of 11,600 feet the party was astonished at 
the appearance of sunbirds {Nectarinia decheni). A 
nest with a chick in it was found and placed in front of 
the tent and the male appeared “in all the beauty of 
his bridal plumage. ” 
One of the most conspicuous birds in the Rift Valley 
is the bee-eater, and it is interesting to watch this bird 
perched on the leafless bough of a tree from which it 
makes short flights after bees, wasps, or insects which it 
captures on the wing after the fashion of a fly-catcher, 
and displaying its brilliant colours. The tail of this 
bee-eater is peculiar, in many species the twelve rectrices 
end squarely, but in Merops the two middle feathers 
are prolonged far beyond the others, forming a median 
tapering point. 
The bee-eaters are not shy birds, and will allow a 
close approach, and they also pick ticks from the backs 
of cattle. A. H. Neumann found bee-eaters numerous 
around Lake Rudolf: indeed Merops nubicus was very 
friendly with the large crested bustard of that region, 
and had the habit of riding on the bustard’s back. The 
bustard did not “ resent the liberty,” but stalked majes¬ 
tically along whilst its brilliantly clad little jockey kept 
a look-out, sitting sideways, and now and again flew up 
at an insect it had espied, returning again to its “ camel,” 
as Juma the gunbearer not inaptly termed the bustard. 
The bee-eater also sat on the backs of goats, sheep 
and antelopes, but the bustard was its favourite steed. 
Neumann suggests, and probably rightly, that the 
bee-eater found the back of the bustard a point of 
vantage to see and pursue insects in a country where 
suitable sticks to perch on are few. It was a common 
sight to see bee-eaters mounted on bustards. On one 
