The trees swarmed with birds. Many different species—large rhinoceros birds (which Stasch called pepper-eaters), roller, starling, laughing-dove, and countless beautiful “bengalis”—fluttered in the thick foliage or flew from one grove to another, singly or in groups, glittering in every color of the rainbow. Many trees, seen from a distance, appeared to be covered with colored flowers. Nell was particularly delighted on seeing flycatchers[30] and large black birds with bright red feathers on their breasts, whose voices sounded like a shepherd’s flute.[31] Beautiful bee-eaters, pink on top and pale-blue underneath, glistened in the sunlight, catching bees and dragonflies while on the wing. The screams of green parrots could be heard from the tree-tops, as could a sound of silver bells, the mutual greetings of small, gray-green birds hidden in the foliage.
Between sunset and dawn such large flocks of native sparrows[32] flew past that but for their chirping and the flapping of their wings they might have been mistaken for clouds, and Stasch would have thought that the songsters who made the trees vocal during the day were humming throughout the night.
But the children were still more surprised and delighted with some other birds which flew in flocks and sang delightfully. Each group consisted of five or six females and one male, with glittering, metal-like feathers. They alighted on acacias—the male perching on the top of the tree, while the females sat on the lower branches—and after the first notes, which sounded as though he were tuning his voice, the male began to sing, while the females listened in silence. When he had finished they repeated in unison the last refrain of his song. After a brief pause he would begin again, and when he had ended they would again repeat the refrain; then the flock would fly in an airy, wave-like line to the next acacia, and the concert of soloist and chorus would ring out once more through the silence of noon. The children never grew tired of listening. Nell would catch the notes and join the chorus, twittering the last tones in her little thin voice, which sounded like a quick repetition of the sounds, “tui, tui, tui, tui, twi-ling-ting, ting!” Once, when they were following the winged songsters from one tree to another, the children found that they were alone and nearly a kilometer away from their camping-place, for they had left the three negroes and King and Saba behind. Stasch, who had planned to go hunting, had not wanted to take Saba for fear he might bark and frighten the game. When the flock of birds had flown from the last acacia to the other side of the broad ravine, the young boy stood still and said:
