Besides the harmonies of the wilderness, the impressions of the eye are always those that come back alluringly in my recollections. However truly the artist may be able to reproduce all these various impressions, there is one kind that will always be missing from his pictures, namely, all the fleeting movement. To take as an instance only one out of an abundance of forms, who can reproduce in pictures the endless variety of birds, the world of winged life! Every day added to my knowledge of these multitudinous flocks, through the increase day by day of my bird collection, which I obtained at the cost of much labour, and which has been the means of giving to science many hitherto unknown species. As I added each new bird to it, I added also to my knowledge of these beautiful creatures, as yet so little known, and slowly, very slowly I became familiar with them. What splendour of forms and colours! In what enormous flocks does the feathered race inhabit the wilderness and the primeval forest! The Biblical account of the flocks of quails in the desert sounds to us like a legend, and yet it is no legend. At times when we too were marching across the same kind of ground, there flew past us with a whirr of many wings huge flocks of quails, that sought and found their safety in flight. At times I have also seen similar flocks of snipe. How long has it been since both these kinds of birds appeared in such flocks in our country at home?
C. G. Schillings, phot.
HUNGRY VULTURES NEAR MY TENT ON THE TREELESS VELT.
The endless variety of form and colour, the movements of the animals which the eye perceives under the ever-changing tropical light, that shows everything brilliantly and sharply defined, all this taken together makes up memory-pictures of a charm that nothing can surpass. But he only can picture them to himself who has gone forth and made them his own.
The huge sea-turtle comes creeping along, emerges from the waters of the Indian Ocean, and makes for the sandhills to lay its eggs there. Its giant track on the sand leads me to its nest. To my astonished eyes this peculiar track looks as if a ploughshare had torn through the ground.
The Indian Ocean, which is the home of this huge sea-turtle, shelters also in quiet bays the strange Dugong or sea-cow, and great is the surprise of even the natives themselves when from time to time they capture in their nets this remarkable creature, which is becoming rarer every year.
FORMATION OF A FLOCK OF FLAMINGOES IN FLIGHT.
