380 
EASTERN ETHIOPIA 
XXX 
When the intruder goes away it laughs, and cries :— 
I have told you lies. 
When the ground hornbill is foraging, the hen bird 
o 00" 
calls to her mate :— 
Peep, peep into those holes. 
The cock replies :— 
I have looked, I have looked, there is nothing. 
People with ideas of this kind are not lacking in 
imagination, ^sop was a freed slave, probably an 
Ethiopian : who can deny that a story-teller with the 
genius of ^sop or of Krylof may not exist in a Nandi 
village to-day. 
There are sounds made by birds in Eastern Ethiopia 
which should delight English ears. The diminutive 
long-tailed dove uttering its plaintive note in the woods 
of the Kikuyu country and around the lakes of the Eift 
Valley in the early morning is most delightful. The 
ringing noises of the touracos in the wood are like 
human voices. Some of the birds have flute-like notes ; 
those of the organ shrike denote the neighbourhood of 
water, and its bell sound makes the listener fancy that 
a blacksmith is working near at hand. There are many 
species of larks in the Ethiopian region, and some of 
them sing. In British East Africa one, known as 
Fischer’s Bush Lark, makes a peculiar noise with its 
wings. In the breeding-season as the bird soars it 
produces a peculiar rattling sound. Schillings compares 
it to the sharp rhythmical clapping sound produced 
by rattling together small pieces of lath. The sound, 
audible a long distance, is very deceiving, for it 
appears to come from a wood near at hand, but the 
bird is .high in tlie air. 
A bird known as the Coucal, or Lark-heeled Cuckoo 
(because of the long spur on its bind toe like that of the 
lark), haunts papyrus swamps. It is clumsy on the wing 
