lbows, scraped his wings on the ground, and rolled
his head and neck about in a fashion that is indescribable. This, I was
told, was his method of rousing himself, or of relieving his feelings.
It looked more like making a fool of himself. A handful of mealies
seemed to irritate him at first, but by degrees the temptation became
too strong. He commenced to pick a few seeds--ready, however, on the
smallest provocation, to forsake them, charge up to the hedge, and hiss
at us.

"Now, Johnny, I'll keep him in play," said Hobson senior. "You go round
to the nest. Keep well down in the hollows, else he'll be sure to see
you."

Johnny at once rode off. The suspicious David looked after him and
showed a tendency to retire in the direction of his nest, but Hobson
raised his forked stick over the hedge and made a demonstration
therewith. This was more than enough.

Inflated with rage David at once accepted the challenge, and rushed back
to the hedge, over which another handful of mealies were thrown at him,
but mealies had lost much of their power by that time. Thus, with
alternate taunt and temptation was the false attack maintained by the
father, while the real attack was made by the son, at the other
extremity of the fortress.

I followed the real attack. We did not go direct. The bird would at
once have made for its nest had we done so. We rode off in the
direction in which we had come until out of sight, and then, making a
long circuit at full gallop, came round to the other end of the
enclosure, from which point the enemy could not be seen.

There was a wall to cross, then a deep hollow through which the little
stream ran, then a belt of pretty thick bushes, beyond which, on the
open plain, the nest was known to lie--if I may call that a nest which
is a mere hollow in the sand, in which the eggs are laid. Here the
female sits all day while the male marches about on guard. At night the
male sits while the female goes about and feeds. They are most
attentive parents, and there is a fitness in this arrangement as regards
colour, for the brown female squatted on the brown Karroo is almost
invisible in daylight, while the black male is equally invisible during
the darkness of the night.

"You mustn't come with me," said Johnny, dismounting; "it would only
increase the chance of my being seen by David."

I was detailed, therefore, to the inglorious duty of holding the horses,
while my young friend made the