File:A naturalist in the Transvaal (1892) (14804118533).jpg

Identifier: naturalistintran00dist (find matches)
Title: A naturalist in the Transvaal
Year: 1892 (1890s)
Authors: Distant, William Lucas, 1845-1922
Subjects: Zoology -- South Africa Transvaal Transvaal (South Africa) -- Description and travel
Publisher: London, R.H. Porter
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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cing, and impale itself by driving aspike through the front part of its head. These un-toward events occur much more frequently than wesuppose; man has not a monopoly of the miseries oflife. Amongst the Vertebrata, if the sportsman ornaturalist examined the skeletons of his prizes, hewould occasionally find the traces of past fractures anddislocations; and even amongst insects this can bediscerned, but usually, or most clearly, in the largeOrthoptera, whose long limbs are particularly liable tothe accidents of field and flood, and the size of whichrenders the marks of these misadventures more visiblethan is the case among smaller insects. Many birds of prey visit the immediate neighbourhoodof Pretoria, and are a considerable danger to young 56 A NATURALIST IN THE TRANSVAAL. poultry reared in open situations. The most common ofthese depredators is the Rufous Buzzard (Buteo deser-torum) and an occasional Yellow-billed Kite (Milvuscegyptius). These birds, especially the former, were par-
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Buteo desertorum. Post of Observation. ticularly numerous about the month of December, andwere a great source of trouble to the small squatters onthe veld, who erect their shanties (for no other wordwill adequately express the poverty of these dwellings) PHASES OF NATURE AROUND PRETORIA. 57 on the outskirts of the town. Most of these peoplekept a few poultry, and their young chickens andducklings too often served as food for the active andrapacious birds. I skinned several specimens thatwere shot about this time, and they were lined withlayers of yellow fat, similar to what is found in an over-fed Christmas goose. These buzzards were particularlyfond of sitting on the telegraph-poles that crossed theveld, or using the tops of ant-hills as a post of obser-vation, and were a terror to all the domestic birds ofthe neighbourhood. The dread of impending evil sitsas heavily on the minds of these ducks and fowls as thefear of poverty chills the heart of so many men; and Ionce witnessed this

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