THE FEATHERED TRIBE. 227, stranger. Close by, a dark baboon mother was giving her offspring rough lectures on good manners, which, to judge from the howling, were not much appreciated; tall fox-coloured baboons, white on the under-side, were chasing one another along the tree-tops, and barking and yelping like hoarse dogs. A small mouse-coloured monkey with a black face, and quite unknown to me, skulked away through the thick bush; two varieties of Funambulus ran up and down the long tendrils of the creeping plants, and the graceful erus lewewmbrinus roved about upon the ground. Small cats, ichneumons, rats, and mice had also found a comfortable shelter in the wood, and other creatures quite unknown, to judge from the description, are said to haunt it, especially at night.

The feathered tribe was much more numerous and striking. Gorgeous blue kingfishers (Halycon senegalensis and H. semicerulea) and beautiful bee-eaters (Merops Bullockw and MM.

albicollis) were perched on the dry boughs watching for insects; a large grey cuckoo, probably a new variety, could be heard in the tree-tops, as also the handsome Cuculus capensis, whose loud cry the Negroes interpret by the word lashakong (my gourd), and a charming little falcon (Misus sp.) joined them with a sharp chirp, which the natives call lefit, a happy imitation of its cry. Snow-white terpsiphone and briliant golden cuckoos (Chalcites cupreus and C. Clasvi) were swinging in the green leafy bowers, and cunning barbets (Pogonorhynchus Rolleti, P. diadematus, and P. abyssinicus) came into sight for a moment, to disappear again directly, like woodpeckers. In the thick copsewood Bessornis Heuglinii flew off at my approach with a sudden cry of fear, and Cichladusa guitata sang as loudly, but was not quite so shy. An Aédon warbled its beautiful song among the thickest briers, and was accompanied by the tapping of numerous woodpeckers. I caught Picus nubicus, the rarer P. minutus, and another kind which I think is new; it closely resembles P. schoensis, and is equally handsome.

Animal life abounded also in the open country, covered with shrubs, and on the broad clearings and sandy flats. The ground was strewn with the shells of Achatina zebra; small lizards and snakes of various kinds—among them the rare