I Have Sometimes Imagined
That The Lowering Of The Temperature In The Winter Rendered The Vapor
In The Upper Current Of Air Visible, And Imparted This Hazy Appearance.
The amount of organic life is surprising.
At the time the river
begins to rise, the `Ibis religiosa' comes down in flocks of fifties,
with prodigious numbers of other water-fowl. Some of the sand-banks
appear whitened during the day with flocks of pelicans - I once counted
three hundred; others are brown with ducks (`Anas histrionica') -
I got fourteen of these by one shot (`Querquedula Hottentota', Smith),
and other kinds. Great numbers of gulls (`Procellaria turtur', Smith),
and several others, float over the surface. The vast quantity of small birds,
which feed on insects, show that the river teems also
with specimens of minute organic life. In walking among bushes on the banks
we are occasionally stung by a hornet, which makes its nest
in form like that of our own wasp, and hangs it on the branches of trees.
The breeding storgh* is so strong in this insect that it pursues any one
twenty or thirty yards who happens to brush too closely past its nest.
The sting, which it tries to inflict near the eye, is more like
a discharge of electricity from a powerful machine, or a violent blow,
than aught else. It produces momentary insensibility,
and is followed by the most pungent pain. Yet this insect is quite timid
when away from its nest. It is named Murotuani by the Bechuanas.
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