being scarcely perceptible during the spring. I was afraid to fire with ball, the place being full of Badawin huts, herds, and dogs, and the vicinity of man made the animals too wild for small shot. In revenge, I did considerable havoc amongst the spur-fowl, who proved equally good for sport and the pot, besides knocking over a number of old crows, whose gall the Arab soldiers wanted for collyrium.[1] Beyond us lay Warabalay or Hyaenas' hill[2]: we did not visit it, as all its tenants had been driven away by the migration of the Nomads.
- ↑ The Somal hold the destruction of the "Tuka" next in the religious merit to that of the snake. They have a tradition that the crow, originally white, became black for his sins. When the Prophet and Abu Bakr were concealed in the cave, the pigeon hid there from their pursuers: the crow, on the contrary, sat screaming "ghar! ghar!" (the cave! the cave!) upon which Mohammed ordered him into eternal mourning, and ever to repeat the traitorous words.
There are several species of crows in this part of Africa. Besides the large-beaked bird of the Harar Hills, I found the common European variety, with, however, the breast feathers white tipped in small semicircles as far as the abdomen. The little "king crow" of India is common: its bright red eye and purplish plume render it a conspicuous object as it perches upon the tall camel's back or clings to waving plants.
- ↑ The Waraba or Durwa is, according to Mr. Blyth, the distinguished naturalist, now Curator of the Asiatic Society's Museum at Calcutta, the Canis pictus seu venaticus (Lycaon pictus or Wilde Honde of the Cape Boers). It seems to be the Chien Sauvage or Cynhyène (Cynhyæna venatica) of the French traveller M. Delegorgue, who in his "Voyage dans l'Afrique Australe," minutely and diffusely describes it. Mr. Gordon Cumming suppose sit to form the connecting link between the wolf and the hyæna. This animal swarms throughout the Somali country, prowls about the camps all night, dogs travellers, and devours everything he can find, at times pulling down children and camels, and when violently pressed by hunger, men. The Somal declare the Waraba to be a hermaphrodite; so the ancients supposed the hyæna to be of both sexes—an error arising from the peculiar appearance of an orifice situated near two glands which secrete an unctuous fluid.
