Many other typical bird-voices live in my memory. I hear the peculiar plaintive cry of the large cormorants that are busy with their fishing by the salt lakes of the wilderness, a cry that seems most fitted for these solitudes. The mysterious chattering and chirping of the little swamp-fowl come to my ear from the shallows and the bushes along the banks of silent rivers of the primeval forest, a bird-language so strange that the natives believe the birds are conversing with the fish in the stream. I hear the cackling of the knowing Nile-geese, that seem to be always engaged in conversation; when on the wing, too, a pair of them, in their affectionate fidelity, have always some warning, some reminder of something or other to call out to each other. Where their cry resounds one hears also frequently that of the wonderful, wailing peewit; it has a plaintive and melancholy effect on the mind of the listener. Far different is the noisy outcry of its brightly coloured cousin, a denizen of the thirsty wilderness (_Stephanibyx coronatus_, Bodd.). Shrill and harsh the voice of the bird rings out, a watch-cry by day and night, and when in bright moonlight nights they fly in flocks over the camp. Swarms of these remarkable birds, the police of the wilderness in feathered uniforms, flutter around the traveller as he approaches. They ruin his attempts to stalk wild animals, and their strident screeches, to which all other animals hearken, haunt him long after, as also the call and cry of the large, yellow-eyed thick-knee, an inhabitant of the loneliest solitudes. But I cannot imagine the low shores of African lakes and the sea-coast without the cry of the widely distributed sandpiper, which has its home in the far north. In winter its low plaintive cry is heard at every step: but even in summer the trained ear can distinguish it here and there. These individual stragglers from the north are thus to be found during all times of the year in this distant country, while the most of their kindred tribe have successfully made their way to the Polar lands, their usual summer breeding-place. [Illustration: A SHRIKE (_LANIUS CAUDATUS_, Cab.) ON THE LOOK-OUT FROM THE HIGH BOUGHS OF AN ACACIA. ITS CRIES WHEN IT SEES A HUNTER ON THE MOVE OFTEN WARN THE ANIMALS HE IS STALKING.]