In the neighbourhood of water, wherever it may be, and in the thick undergrowth, wherever the African wilderness extends, you hear the call and cry of a peculiar bird-voice. It rings out through the stillness with a deep double piping note, that impresses itself in a lasting way on the ear. It is the voice of the handsome organ-shrike (_Laniarius æthiopicus_, Gm.). These shrikes, which mate permanently, always utter this note in such quick succession, one of the pair after the other, that at first you think you are listening to only a single bird. This beautiful bird-note indicates the proximity of water, and thus it has acquired quite a special significance in these countries. Finally there is no sound from the throat of a bird that I call to mind so plainly, or so continually, as the song of the African nightingale (_Erithacus africanus_, [Fschr.] Rchw.). I have very frequently heard this beautiful song during the months of our winter, in many districts round Kilimanjaro. When I heard it unexpectedly for the first time, I was most deeply moved by it. Ten years ago I heard it during a day’s march in the wooded gullies of the great volcanic mountain, and it was most clear and full and beautiful. I never expected thus to hear this northern bird-voice in the tropics. Later on, when I was camped at a considerable altitude in the primeval forests of Kilimanjaro, I was saluted with the cries of northern migratory birds, that, wheeling round the mountain, seemed to be flying over its everlasting snowfields. It was a strange coincidence in those Christmas days, the song of the northern nightingale, and those northern birds of passage on the wing under the equatorial sun! It is worth noting that this voice of the nightingale was the only genuine northern bird-song that I ever heard in Africa. That our nightingale also sometimes breeds there is indicated by the discovery of its nest by the late Dr. Fischer. But the problem of the extraordinary identity in character of this nightingale with its northern sister still awaits solution. Many difficult observations will have to be made in order to investigate it thoroughly. What a contrast to this song of our northern nightingale is presented by the voices of the hyenas and jackals, the strange cry uttered by the leopard, all the sounds emitted by the antelopes, and finally the indescribably startling, harsh-sounding bellow of the crocodile! But neither individually nor collectively can the effect of all these voices be expressed in words. They associate themselves with the forms of a flora untouched by the hand of man, and the unceasing throb of animal life. I think of them all together as a theatre of nature now flooded with sunlight, now in the mysterious darkness of night, or with glistening moonbeams playing over it. What impresses one so much is not merely these individual voices, but the way in which all the myriad voices mingle in one mighty chorus.