Some South African Birds.
Following the example of other members of the Round Table, I thought I would write and tell you about some of our birds.
My brothers and I have just been talking about the blue hawk. It is not a particularly large bird, and is grayish-blue in color. It is comparatively harmless, its chief prey being rats and mice. Its nest looks like a pile of sticks roughly laid together, but at the bottom of the nest it is very soft. This is the description my little cousin gives of its eggs: "If you were to take a pure white egg and rub it all over with blood, leaving a few white specks, it would be just like a blue-hawk's egg." In shape it is round, and the color is really a dirty red. The bird's call sounds very much like that of a cross fretful baby.
Another peculiar bird here is the hammerhop. It is a large brown bird, and has a crest upon its head which looks like a hammer, hence the name. It preys upon the frogs. It makes a tremendous nest in the shape of a hut on the top of a high rock. I am told that it plasters the nest on the inside.
One of our prettiest birds is the gilded cuckoo or diedrich. The color of its back is green, and looks as if a lot of bronze dust had been sprinkled on it. Its breast is white spotted with brown. Like other cuckoos, it lays its eggs in other birds' nests. The color of the eggs is pure white. It has a very musical call—"dee-dee-dee-diedrich."
The aasvogel is a species of vulture. It is of a dirty white color, and has no feathers at all on its neck. Almost as soon as an animal dies the sky is darkened by aasvogels flying to prey upon the body. The leader or king perches upon it first, while his followers sit round waiting until he is finished. He claims the eyes as his portion, as a rule. As soon as he has satisfied his hunger he flies away, leaving his followers to have their share. The aasvogel builds his nest of sticks on the top of some inaccessible krautz (precipice). The eggs are white, I believe, spotted with brown. I would like to correspond with Ladies of the Round Table in different parts of the world.
Isma Fincham.
Roydon, Queenstown, Cape Colony, South Africa.