Fourthly, we had too serious an object in view, which was to discover food and where we were most likely to get it--not for a small party, but for all. As for birds, they made clatter enough overhead, but we were in the basement, and they were on the roof of a fifteen-storey house. They could not be seen at all, though their whistlings, warblings, screamings, and hootings were heard everywhere. There were parrots, ibis, touracos, parraquets, sunbirds, swifts, finches, shrikes, whip-poor-wills, hoopoes, owls, guinea fowl, blackbirds, weavers, kingfishers, divers, fish eagles, kites, wagtails, bee-eaters, pipits, sandpipers, cockatoos, hornbills, jays, barbets, woodpeckers, pigeons, and unknown minute tribes, and millions of large and small bats. The Simian tribe was well represented. I have caught sight of more than a dozen species. I have seen the colobus, dark and grey furred baboons, small black monkeys, galagos and flying squirrels, and others, but not nearer than a hundred yards. Long before we could reach them they had been alarmed by the murmur of the caravan, and commenced the retreat. We came across a number of reptiles. The Ituri swarms with water snakes of various lengths. They continued to drop frequently very close to our boat, slender green whip-snakes, others lead colour of formidable size; others green, gold and black, six feet long. We saw pythons, puff adders, horned and fanged snakes, while small bush snakes about two feet long often fell victims during the preparation of camps. Insects would require a whole book. Never have I seen such countless armies and species as during my various marches through this forest. I should consider it _infra dig._ to refer to those minute creatures after the lavish abuses I, in common with others of the Expedition, have bestowed on them. I recollect but few hours of daylight that I did not express myself unkindly towards them. Those bees, large and small, the wasps, the hordes of moths by night, the house-flies, tsetse, gadflies, gnats, and butterflies by day, the giant beetles, attracted by the light in the tent, sailing through the darkness, and dashing frantically against the canvas, rebounding in their rage from side to side, and all the time hoarsely booming, finally with roars of fury dashing themselves against my book or face, as though they would wreak vengeance on me for some reason; then the swarms of ants peering into my plate, intruding into my washy soup, crawling over my bananas, the crickets that sprang like demons, and fixed themselves in my scalp, or on my forehead; the shrill cicadæ that drove one mad, worse than the peppo-inspired Manyuema women. The Pasha professes to love these tribes, and I confess I have done as much mischief to them as possible.