British Central Africa, says Sir H. H. Johnston, ‘is a country singularly rich in bird life.’ On the Shiré we have a wonderful variety of water-birds—flamingoes, herons, cranes, ducks, geese, plovers—and, to mention no more (these two are among the first noticed by the new comer), the handsome black-and-white fishing-eagle, and the tiny kingfisher, ‘like a flash of blue light.’ Among the hills we have strange forms, like the hornbill, and gorgeous colouring, as in the plantain-eaters and rollers and some of the fly-catchers, and familiar home birds, and their near relations—swallows, thrushes, larks, woodpeckers (the native name for the latter, _gogompanda_, is very expressive). As to singing-birds, I may quote again from Sir Harry Johnston: ‘Both Mr. Whyte and myself have remarked with emphasis at different times on the beauty of the birds’ songs in the hilly regions of British Central Africa. The chorus of singing-birds is quite as beautiful as anything one hears in Europe, thus quite disposing of one of the numerous fictions circulated by early travellers about the tropics, to the effect that the birds, though beautiful, had no melodious songs, and the flowers, though gorgeous, no sweet and penetrating scents. The song of the Mlanje thrush is scarcely to be told from that of the English bird.’ This entirely accords with my own experience. A bird which often sang at night sounded just like a thrush. As to reptiles, crocodiles abound in the Shiré and the lake, and are so dangerous that in many places the women draw water from the top of a high bank by means of a calabash attached to a long pole, instead of going down to the edge of the stream, as they would naturally do. Though accidents are so frequent, the crocodile can hardly be called a habitual eater of human flesh. His staple food is fish, and ‘it is only a rare incident for them to capture a mammal of any size; an incident which, given a number of crocodiles in any stream or lake, can only occur to each one at most once a year on an average.’[1] The natives (women sometimes do take the precaution I have mentioned) are strangely reckless in venturing into the water; they provide themselves with ‘crocodile medicine’ in whose efficacy they firmly believe; and if any bather comes to grief notwithstanding, it is presumed that his ‘medicine’ was not of the right kind, or had lost its power. But it seems that the crocodile will only seize a solitary person; consequently, if a whole party go into the water together, as usually happens, and make a great splashing, they are comparatively safe.