Page:Seven Years in South Africa v1.djvu/77

 its junction with the Modder, and, as is the case with most of the South African streams in the dry winter season, there were large pools, nine or ten feet deep and full of fish, extending right across the river-bed.

The whole valley is thickly covered with weeping willows (Salix Babylonica), and amongst these I found some very interesting birds. Pushing my way through the brushwood, with the design of making a closer inspection of one of the pools, I was startled by a great rustling, and by a chorus of notes just over my head. I stepped back, and a whole flock of birds rose into the air and settled in a thorn at no great distance. They were the pretty long-tailed Colius leucotis. I afterwards saw two other varieties of the same species. One of the flock that I had disturbed perched itself upon a bough almost close at hand, as if resolved to make a deliberate survey of the strangers who had intruded on its retirement, but all the rest had taken refuge in the bush, and were completely hidden from my view. They are lively little creatures, but very difficult to keep in confinement; the only caged specimens I ever saw were in Grahamstown, in the possession of a bird-fancier, who kept them with several kinds of finches, and fed them with oranges.

The most common birds in the Riet River valley are doves, and those almost exclusively of two sorts, the South African blue-grey turtle-dove, and the laughing-dove; of these the latter is found even beyond the Zambesi; it is a most attractive little