One Of The Chief Features Of Free Town Are The Jack Crows.
Some
writers say they are peculiar to Sierra Leone, others that they are
not, but both unite in calling them Picathartes gymnocephalus.
To
the white people who live in daily contact with them they are turkey
buzzards; to the natives, Yubu. Anyhow they are evil-looking fowl,
and no ornament to the roof-ridges they choose to sit on. The
native Christians ought to put a row of spikes along the top of
their cathedral to keep them off; the beauty of that edifice is very
far from great, and it cannot carry off the effect produced by the
row of these noisome birds as they sit along its summit, with their
wings arranged at all manner of different angles in an "all gone"
way. One bird perhaps will have one straight out in front, and the
other casually disposed at right-angles, another both straight out
in front, and others again with both hanging hopelessly down, but
none with them neatly and tidily folded up, as decent birds' wings
should be. They all give the impression of having been extremely
drunk the previous evening, and of having subsequently fallen into
some sticky abomination - into blood for choice. Being the
scavengers of Free Town, however, they are respected by the local
authorities and preserved; and the natives tell me you never see
either a young or a dead one. The latter is a thing you would not
expect, for half of them look as if they could not live through the
afternoon.
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