Identifier: matabelelandvict00oates (find matches)
Title: Matabele land and the Victoria Falls : a naturalist's wanderings in the interior of South Africa, from the letters and journals of the late Frank Oates
Year: 1881 (1880s)
Authors: Oates, Frank Oates, Charles George
Subjects: Natural history Birds
Publisher: London : C.K. Paul
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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once, to enable him to establishhimself in his house this evening, but I found I couldnot be ready, so he and his family are encamped out-side, inhabiting their waggons. However, I held outhopes to him of vacating the place to-morrow, whichseemed to satisfy him. In fact the Boers are just ^ The woodcut opposite illustrates two of the whydah-finches,which the traveller collected during his present stay at Tati. Thegeneral colour of the upper bird is black, with a collar of ruddy brown,fading into buff beneath ; that of the lower one black and paleyellow, the bill and legs coral-red. In the winter season these birdslose their long tail feathers, and their plumage becomes a mottledbrown ; a great contrast to their striking summer dress. There aremany varieties of these finches, one species of which (Chera progne),a native of the Transvaal, suffers serious inconvenience from theseadornments in a high wind. The long tail feathers are much usedby the natives for ornaments and head-dresses.
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■.jf. i^y.JX, I VERREAUXS WHYDAH BIRD.— Vidiih Vcrreauxi. SHAFT-TAlI.Kn WHNDAIl I;1K1).— IidlUl fCirtcl. BOERS AND THEIR WAGGONS. 221 as much at home at their waggons as in a house.They have httle primitive camp-stools, on whichthey sit round the hre, and the women go abouttheir household duties, and the children play about,and they seem quite at home. Of course whenit rains they sit in the waggons like rats in holes—as I have already done myself, and shall nowbegin to do again. You have no idea how mucha home a waggon becomes. I have my booksand all my et ceteras within reach; and, thoughit is a little cramping, the pleasure of stretchingthe limbs when you do get out repays you to acertain extent. I expect in a day or two a reply from the king,giving me permission to hunt in his veldt. I onlywish to go a short distance from here, to the Rama-queban, and Shashani, and thereabouts—a tract ofcountry that I know pretty well, and for which Ihave a real affection, so often have I

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