1772.
November.
species of antelopes, on hares, jerbuas, caviæ, and many lesser quadrupeds with which the country abounds. The number of birds is likewise very great, and among them many are arrayed in the brightest colours. I cannot help mentioning, in confirmation of Kolben's accounts, that we have seen two species of swallows at the Cape, though the Abbé de la Caille censures him for speaking of them, because they did not occur to himself. The Abbé also commits a mistake with regard to the knorhan, which is not a gelinote or grous, as he calls it, but the African bustard. Upon the whole, it would be easy to refute almost every criticism which the Abbé has passed on Kolben, if a work of so little merit deserved so much attention. Reptiles of all kinds, serpents, (among which are many whose bite is mortal,) and a variety of insects swarm about the Cape; and its shores likewise abound in well-tasted fishes, many of which are not yet known to the naturalist. In short, notwithstanding the many spoils of the vegetable and animal kingdom, which have been brought from Africa, its immense interior countries remain almost entirely unknown to the present time, and still contain great treasures of natural knowledge, which wait the future investigation of another Thunberg or another Bruce.
CHAP.
