Page:Papers presented to the Worlds Congress on Ornithology.djvu/201

 lakes, all the wading and swimming birds of the neighborhood flock every evening to these waters, so as to avoid nightly attacks of the many small robbers, as jackals, hyenas, earthwolves and polecats, which infest these plains of the South African high plateau.

During these observations of ours an hour has passed; the sun’s golden disk is just touching the western horizon; in the east the shadows of the coming night are visible. As our eyes glance over the blue slfy above, adorned here and there with a few light, feathery clouds, glad in the golden-crimson of the sun’s last farewell greetings, we perceive in the far distance, near the horizon and on all sides, a few darkish spots. Is it a delusion or not that they come nearer? We look hither and thither and it seems as if these spots become larger; they appear to approach. And they are approaching; they darken and are rapidly increasing in their breadth. Are they not swarms of locusts? Locusts? Hardly possible! No, they are not these ravenous insects. The locusts come with the wind and pass over in a single dark cloud, darkest just above the ground; but those approaching clouds come from all directions. Some fly very high in the air, others from twenty to fifty yards high, others again move—as you can see—along the wavy grass; and suddenly this one cloud—now surely it is a swarm of birds—swerves aloft. Birds! Behold,—are they all birds, these approaching clouds? Yes, they are, and, to our great surprise, small, dark birds. We watch two of these large swarms, which from due north are making straight for us. They pass abreast for a few moments; suddenly the one to the left turns high up, lowers itself just as suddenly, and now both swarms, turning toward each other, have united in