The Young Yagers: A Narrative of Hunting Adventures in Southern Africa

by Mayne Reid

There were three good reasons why they should not wander. First, because they were wearied with a long day’s work, and one that had been particularly severe. Secondly, the paths leading out were difficult to find. And thirdly, because both the grass and water there were of as good a quality as either horse or ox could have expected to meet with elsewhere. There was no reason, therefore, why any of them should go beyond the confines of the valley where the camp was situated.

As usual, no sooner were Klaas and Jan fairly out of their saddles than they went bird’s-nesting. Several kinds of birds had been seen by them as they entered this secluded valley; and it was likely that some of their nests would be found at no great distance off.

And some were found. Upon the shrubs and reeds quite a colony of birds had made their habitations. They were small sparrow-looking birds, having nests of a kidney-shape, hollow in the inside, which was reached by little circular entrances, something like the nests of the common wren. The outside part was constructed of grass; while inside, the nests were lined with a soft substance resembling wool. This was the cottony down obtained from some plant that, no doubt, grew in that neighbourhood, but which the boys could not see anywhere around.

Now these little birds were already well known to the young yägers. They had met with them before; and all of them knew they were birds of the genus Ploceinae, or weaver-birds. They knew, moreover, that there are not only many species of weaver-birds, but that there are also many genera, or rather subgenera, of them, differing from each other in size, colour, and habits, but all possessing the curious instinct of building nests of a very ingenious kind—in other words “weaving” them; from which circumstance they derive their trivial name. The nests of all the species differ from each other. Some are constructed of a globe-shape; others like a chemist’s retort; others of kidney-form; and still another kind of nest is that of the “social weaver-birds.” These last unite in large numbers, and fill one great nest, or “hive,” which often fills the whole top of a great acacia, looking like a haystack built among the branches of the tree.

The little weavers observed by Klaas and Jan were of the genus Amadina—the Amadina squamifrons; and both the boys were glad at encountering some of their nests at that moment. Not that they were at all curious to see the eggs, for they had examined them often before. No: that was not the reason. There was another and a different one. It was this: the inside lining of the nest of the amadina makes excellent wadding for shot-guns—quite equal to tow, and even better than the softest paper; and as both Klaas and Jan were out of wadding, they expected to replenish their stock by robbing the poor amadinas of their pretty nests.

They would not have done so wantonly, for Hans would not have permitted them; but, as hunters, they stood in real need of the article, and therefore they took it without remorse.

Simple as the thing was, they were compelled to unravel the nests before they could get at the soft material with which they were lined: and this unravelling was not done without some difficulty, for the outside work was woven together like the rods in a fine piece of basket-work. The entrance which the bird had left for its own passage in and out was so small, that the boys could not thrust their hands into it; and, what was singular, this entrance, whenever the bird was absent from the nest, was so closed up that it was difficult to find it!

Having obtained as much wadding as they required out of a pair of nests, the boys did not disturb any of the others; but permitting them to hang where they had found them, returned to the wagons.

They had not been long there before their attention was attracted to another bird, and one of a rarer and more curious kind than the amadina. It did not differ much from the latter in point of size, but in the nature and colour of its plumage—which was most curious indeed. The bird which now occupied the attention, not only of Klaas and Jan, but of all the others, was about the size of a canary-bird; but its long tail-feathers, several times the length of its body, gave it the appearance of being much larger than it really was.

Its colour was of a very dark glossy brown, or nearly black, upon the head and over the upper parts of the body. Around the neck was a collar of orange rufous, which grew paler upon the breast, ending in a buff tinge over the abdomen, lower parts of the body, and thighs.