CHAPTER XXI.

Natural History of the Birds of Africa.

Introductory Observations-Vultures-Serpent-eater-Eagles-Hawks— Owls-Butcher-birds-Thrushes-Buntings-Colius-Beef-eaters-Rollers-Goatsuckers-Swallows-Hoopoes-Promerops-Creepers-Beeeater-Kingfishers-Hornbills-Woodpeckers-Cuckoos-Honey-guideParrots-Pogonias-Trogon-Musophaga-Touraco-Pigeons-Guinea

Fowls-Quails-Partridges, &c.-Ostrich-Bustards-Balearic Cranes -Flamingo-Gigantic Stork-Umber-Snipe and Woodcock-Sandpiper -Courier-Plover-Penguin-Pelican-Plotus-Tern-Gull-Albatross -Cape Petrel-Spurwinged Goose-Mountain Goose-Egyptian Goose -Sheldrake-Musk-duck.

WE shall next take a rapid survey of some other departments of the natural history of Africa; and continuing, as we have commenced, with a certain degree of systematic arrangement, we come to the second great class which attracts the attention of the traveller, namely, that of birds.

The arid and wide-spread plains which compose so large a portion of this continent, are unfavourable to the existence and multiplication of the feathered race. Yet the more umbrageous banks of rivers, the extensive forests which here and there impede the drifting of the desert-sand, and those green and grateful oases which towards evening cast their far-stretching shadows across a waterless land, harbour in their cool recesses many a gorgeous form of the winged creation. Nor can we suppose that the mountain-summits, and those Sierras which occasionally interrupt the horizontal view of the bleached wilderness, are uninhabited by birds of prey, eagle-eyed and swift of wing, there perched securely amid their rocky fortresses, but ever ready to descend with voracious cry, when the blast of the simoom overwhelms the exhausted caravan, or the weary camel " ship of the desert" is seen to stoop its mast-like neck, and the glassy hue of death suffuses its gentle eye, putting an end for ever to its painful toils. And if, as has been supposed, some of the great African rivers empty their translucent streams into an interior and sea-like lake, many an unknown but beautiful aquatic bird must haunt its mysterious and long-sought shores, and revel in the crystal depths of those delusive waters which have already led on to death so many of our brave and devoted countrymen. To these, however, so long as heroic

enterprise is valued, they will likewise prove the waters of immortality, though to their surviving and deploring friends, bitter as the fountain of Marah.*

We may commence by stating that the most distant, that is, the most southern quarter of Africa, is that with which naturalists are best acquainted. This of course is owing mainly to the early establishment of those European colonies which have existed at the Cape, and the frequent intercourse which the more northern nations have been induced to carry on with that quarter of the world. In regard to the ornithology of the nearer portions of that continent, for example of the Mediterranean shores, our knowledge is still extremely slight, and even the more productive provinces of Asia Minor are scarcely known, "notwithstanding the interest they possess in determining the limits of the three regions which there meet, namely, Europe, Africa, and Asia." The feathered species of Egypt were described, in some measure, by Savigny and the other naturalists who accompanied the French expedition; and the greatest importance attaches to the discoveries of Rüppell in Nubia and Abyssinia. But still more has been done for the southern extremity of the continent with which we are here engaged, by Vaillant, Lichtenstein, Burchell, Smith, and others. The Birds of Western Africa" have recently been illustrated by Mr Swainson, with his usual skill. We shall here avail ourselves of some of the preliminary observations of that respected author.

Of the birds common to Europe and Africa the majority are of a migratory nature, and it is from these that we derive the chief proportion of our own most gaily-coloured species, such as the bee-eater (Merops Europeus), the golden oriole (Oriolus galbula), the roller (Coracias garrulus), the hoopoe (Upupa Epops), and several others. The periodical movements of these comparatively defenceless species occasionally induce a corresponding change of position on the part of sundry birds of the carnivorous kind, which prey upon the stragglers. "Nor is this similarity," says Mr Swainson, "between the birds of the two continents confined only to such as inhabit the land. It is a curious and unrecorded fact, that a migration almost equally extensive takes place among the waders and swimmers. During many years' residence, for instance, in the island of Sicily, a spot peculiarly favourable for carrying on observations of this nature, we never met with the purple or the night herons, or the glossy ibis, except during the spring or autumnal migrations; at such times the whole island may be considered

*The writer of these notices dwelt at one time, during his boyhood, for many months in the family and constant companionship of the late lamented Major Laing, and was in habits either of personal intimacy or correspondence with the unfortunate Bowdich, Oudney, Clapperton, and the younger Park who so lately perished following his father's footsteps. + The Naturalist's Library (Ornithology, vols vii. and viii.). Introduction to vol. i. p. 93.

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like a vast preserve of quails, and numerous other migratory birds." The same author regards Northern Africa as the boundary of the bush shrikes (Mala conotus), one of which Mal. barbarus, is the most northern visiter, although its southern range reaches Senegal. It may be inferred that several birds, native to the sandy deserts of the most arid portions of Barbary, Algiers, and other parts of the Mediterranean shore, are peculiar to these districts, in as far as they would find no congenial localities on the more fertile and umbrageous lands of the opposite coast. On a general and comparative survey of South African ornithology but few species of the perching order are found to be common to both extremities of the continent,-Mr Swainson being very doubtful of the accuracy of Le Vaillant's opinion that the great-horned, the long-horned, and the little-horned owls of the Cape, are identical with the so-called species of Europe. This much is certain, that of the species of the falcon tribe, figured in his work on the birds of Southern Africa, none are to be found in Europe; and only one of those now described as natives of Western Africa is mentioned by our author as likewise inhabiting the southern extremity." Although the ornithology of Western Africa is fully as different from the northern as the latter is from the southern, there are nevertheless many points of resemblance between the birds of Senegal and those of the southern districts, and which as it were connect them together, without diminishing the features peculiar to each. This union, he thinks, is effected by the migratory species of Western Africa, several of which take their flight southwards and return after a temporary residence amid more southern plains, a fact formerly conjectured by Le Vaillant. It may be questioned, however, whether any Senegal birds migrate northwards, except such as are more characteristic of the banks of the Gambia, which are likewise found in Britain, and the species already named as common to the north of Africa and the south of Europe. Adanson's assertion that our home swallow is identical with that of Senegal has not been clearly confirmed by recent observation.

The most striking peculiarity in the birds of Senegal is the preponderance of richly plumaged species, a circumstance to be accounted for in two ways. 66 Either," says Mr S., "it is the result of commercial speculation among the dealers, who imagine that such birds will find a better market in Europe than those of a more homely plumage; or it is a real peculiarity, and therefore arising from natural laws. We believe this latter to be the true reason." This splendour of feather is in truth in unison with that law, which renders the majority of natural productions so large and magnificent, both in regard to size and colour, in proportion as we approach the equinoctial line. Witness the forests of Pará, which contain the most gorgeous of the birds of Brazil, and the insular though torrid shores of New Guinea, and the small isles of Arroo and Banda, which contain the paradise birds and other showy species of the Indian Ocean.

Although we possess little precise knowledge of the physical features of these western coasts of Africa, an interesting and important inference may be drawn from this richness of colour, and the general nature of the families to which most of the species in question belong,-namely, that they have been met with in a woody country, where vegetation is luxuriant, and where both insects and fruits must abound. A large majority of the birds referred to feed either upon insects which inhabit the vicinity of forests, or upon fruits which grow in well-wooded regions. Mr Swainson informs us that his Senegal collections contain very few of those genera which live only in open plains or desert tracts, such as Saxicola, Alauda, Otis, Perdix, Pterocles, and others, which are known to constitute so much larger a proportion of the ornithology of Southern Africa, while on the other hand, the rollers and bee-eaters, which live so exclusively on insects, and occur only on the skirts of thick woods, are numerous in Senegal, but almost if not entirely unknown at the Cape. So also with the cuckoos, which live chiefly among trees. Such as occur in Southern Africa are found in the thick forests towards Algoa Bay, and some other woodland situations; but a considerable diversity of kinds occur in Senegal, two of which pertain to the lustrous group named Calcytes, previously met with further south by Le Vaillant. The scansorial or climbing birds are of course strictly arboreal, and many species are known in Senegal. The beautiful sun-birds (Cinnyris) which feed on floral juices, and also, it is probable, on the minute insects which are found in the nectaries of flowers, are also very common in Western Africa. These facts are certainly sufficient to show that, however dry and destitute of vegetation may be the interior regions of Africa, yet in Senegal there must be numerous luxuriant districts, diversified by leafy forests and by flowering shrubs, capable of producing an abundant supply both of animal and vegetable food for birds which hold their being under those conditions.

If the multiplicity of species, even in the class of quadrupeds, be found an insuperable obstacle to a minute account in such a publication as the present, far more must we curtail our remarks when treating of the feathered race, the number of which, not unfamiliar to the ornithologist, does not, it is probable, fall short of 6000 species. Let us commence with the carnivorous tribes.

Several species of vulture occur in Africa, where, as in other countries, they follow troops of armed men,

"Sagacious of their quarry from afar,"

in the hope of ere long preying on their slaughtered bodies. It is, however, now supposed to be by the sense of sight, and not by that of smell, that these birds so quickly discover and assemble round their victims on the battle-field.

The eared vulture (l'oricou of Le Vaillant) is a gregarious species which inhabits the southern parts of Africa. Their

nests are placed very near each other, and they are seen sitting in vast numbers about the caverns of the rocky mountains where they breed.

A doubtful species, called the armed vulture, is mentioned by Browne in his African Travels, and is said to be extremely frequent in the country of Darfur, where it flies about in thousands. The African snake-eater (Falco serpentarius, Linn.) is usually placed between the vultures and hawks. It is a long-legged species, of peculiar aspect, resembling in some respects rather a wader than a bird of prey. It inhabits dry open plains in the lower parts of Southern Africa, and feeds on reptiles. Le Vaillant found in the craw of a single bird twenty-one young tortoises, three snakes, and eleven lizards, and, besides these, there was a large ball in the stomach formed entirely of the scales of tortoises, the vertebræ of snakes and lizards, the legs of locusts, and the wing-cases of coleopterous insects.

Of more noble habits are the eagles, hawks, and other carnivorous birds, which, for the most part disdaining the putrid carcasses, whether of man or beast, overcome by speed of wing, and pounce with their talons on all such living creatures as they are able to subdue.

Among the eagles of Africa may be mentioned the griffard (Falco armiger), a native of the country of the Namaquas, and the imperial (F. imperialis of Temm.), described by Savigny in the splendid French work on Egypt. This latter species also inhabits the mountains of the southern parts of Europe.

Of the numerous hawks, or smaller species of the falcon tribe which inhabit this continent, we shall mention, in the first place, the chanting falcon (F. musicus, Daudin). We must not suppose, from the name of this bird, that its notes in any way resemble the harmonious tones of the nightingale, or even those of our less celebrated songsters. Its voice is merely a little clearer than usual, although it seems impressed with a high idea of its own powers. It will sit for half a day perched upon the summit of a tall tree, uttering incessant cries, which the darkness of the night is sometimes insufficient to terminate. It builds in woods in the interior of Caffraria, and commits great havock among quails and partridges. The crested African falcon (F. galericulatus) resembles the peregrine falcon of Europe. It dwells on the seashore and the borders of lakes, and feeds on fish, crabs, and the testaceous tribes. The ranivorous, or frogeating falcon (F. ranivorous) is a native of the Cape of Good Hope, and appears to be allied to the moor-buzzards in its manners. It builds its nest among rushes, with the stalks of the leaves of water-plants, and feeds chiefly on frogs and young waterfowl.

The next family of carnivorous birds are the nocturnal tribes called owls, which may be said to bear the same relation to the more active and elegant hawks that moths do to butterflies. Africa is by no means rich in them, at least very few have attracted the notice of travellers in that country. We shall here mention only the very beautiful falconian owl of Latham (Strix