wings out, effectually terrified the Zosterops and other small birds away from the bunches. There is a certain fitness in this employment of Nature's own police, but the system has not been tried in New Zealand, where there is no bird with quite such an alarming voice 28 the Butcher-bird, which might be called in. A man I know of near in the vineyard with their Wellington had & lot of apple-trees which had suffered very much from the depredations of Blackbirds, Thrushes, and Zosterops. One year, in despair at the loss of nearly all his fruit, he put up posts round the outside of the plot and covered the whole of the trees with wire netting, on the top as well as at the sides. The plan worked admirably so far as the birds were concerned, of course: but he had reckoned without the hosts of the codlin moth. These seized the opportunity afforded by the absence of their natural foes, and when the orchardist picked his apples, a heavy crop, next season, every single one was found riddled with the ugly tubular tracks of the detested grub. In the summer of the succeeding year he tried leaving the door open, but the Blight-birds seemed to suspect a trap, and none would enter. So he took down his wirework. Here it may be mentioned that settlers often protect their orchards from this moth by planting the "codlin - moth plant' near the fruit - trees. It is a curious carnivorous plant, a creeper with deep flowers into which the moth, probing in search of nectar, is presently held close prisoner and, later, devoured at a season of the year when she has not yet laid her eggs. The Zosterops is particularly fond of grapes. A Victorian A Victorian vigneron found that one or two Butcher-birds (Cracticus), kept Neither in Victoria nor in New Zealand is the Zosterops protected by law. Indeed, there was at one time almost a crusade against these birds in New Zealand; but this is not likely to be repeated: public opinion, being now under the guidance of men who have studied their economic value, is veering round in favour of these and many other birds very much as it has done in England. Curiously enough, the Blight-bird in New Zealand has suffered far more from the Maoris, whom it never troubled in the least, than from the white settlers. It had the misfortune to earn an immediate reputation as a horsd'oeuvre at formal feasts. The Bay of Plenty natives had a singular way of catching it. Selecting a tree where the "Tauhous were wont to congregate, the man would clear a space among the boughs, put up several horizontal perches, and then sit beneath them with a stick in his hand, imitating the while the call-note of the birds. Presently a flock would come swarming into the tree and fill the perches; then, suddenly switching his stick along the perches from end to end, the hunter would knock down dozens of the little birds at a time, to be gathered up by a boy stationed under the tree. A couple of Uriwera boys have been seen with a basket containing as many as 600 birds killed in this manner. The subsequent preparation was simple; they were plucked and preserved in fat as a winter food. It is a small bird, and the Maoris found no difficulty in eating head, bones and all. A further, if slighter, misfortune which the Blight-bird meets with in New Zealand is the patronage of the Shining Cuckoo. This bird, one of the few regular immigrants from Northern Australia to New Zealand (where it breeds), lays an egg which, though larger and of a deeper blue-green than the beautiful hedge-sparrowlike egg of the Blight-bird, still bears a a considerable resemblance to the latter. There is a olosely allied cuckoo in the south-east of Australia, the Narrow-billed Bronze Cuckoo : but it lays a red-spotted egg that would look startlingly conspicuous in the nest of the Blight-bird, which it therefore usually avoids in favour of those of rarer species. The fact that its congener seeks out the Blight-bird's nest in preference to those of indigenous New Zealand species seems to be rather a good example of protective mimicry by approximate colouration. J. A. OWEN. A VOYAGE TO WEST AFRICA. I HAVE never yet embarked upon any steamer, whether bound for West Africa, across the Atlantic, or elsewhere, without harbouring at first a decidedly unpleasant impression of the passengers on board. Most men who have travelled on the sea will recognise this feeling. Faces unlit by the sparks struck out by personal intercourse are seldom very cheerful to look upon; and just at the time of embarkation there is an uncertainty as to the safety of one's boxes, and a general atmosphere of hurry and bustle, not sweetening to the temper. For some minds, too, there is added a depressing sense of isolation as the shores of England fade to a vague outline on the horizon, and we find ourselves on the stretching distances of the sea with a number of unknown persons for our only company. We are We are not in a charitable mood, and look forward with some misgiving to passing seventeen days or more on board. After a few voyages a man learns to treat such feelings philosophically, and realises that these unknown faces will take on a different colour when he comes to know them better. This better knowledge comes quickly of distrust with which we view our fellow-passengers is probably reciprocal; and only the bolder spirits on board venture to break the ice which covers the personality of those stiff figures that stalk up and down the deck with strained and resolute faces, as though they were in danger of dissolution from want of exercise. I myself drove down to the landingstage at Liverpool in no very cheerful mood, and suspected my cabman of a design to be subtly ironical when he remarked sympathetically that I was having a fine day for my sail. It is not probable, however, that he knew I was bound for the West Coast of Africa, and I acquit him of malice prepense. For the rest, the boat in which I was to sail presented a holiday appearance enough, being full of trippers bound for the Canary Islands, for whose benefit the band of the Liverpool Sailors' Home was discoursing something not unlike music on the upper deck. Las Palmas, the port of Grand Canary, is usually the first place of call for the ElderDempster steamers. An occasional visit is made to Teneriffe, a picturesque island full of green gorges that stretch away between the hills that front the harbour, and possessing a fine peak about which raptures are said to be permissible when the mists allow you to see it. Las Palmas is not so attractive. The hills that rise from the sea behind the town are brown and thirsty-looking, and the land looks waterless and poor. The whole scene has a curious air of unreality. The town itself looks like an enlarged toy-shop, and the hills have an odd artificial appearance, We might fancy we were looking upon a water-colour sketch, pretty but uninspired, a smile of the lips but not of the eyes, 66 a face without a heart." Inland, I am told, things are different, where the hill streams are used to irrigate the fruit farms, and green things are allowed to grow. A humber of half-clad Spaniards swarm on board demanding exorbitant prices for their wares; and to these cheerful rascals the Englishman, accustomed in his own country to assume the honesty of his fellow-countrymen and give the price asked for without demur, is apt to fall an easy prey. We are already half way to the Tropics, and under the sunny skies of Las Palmas the lack of clothing of the dark-skinned urchins that dive for money in the sea seems as natural as it will seem later at Sierra Leone. After Las Palmas we see no more of holiday-makers, and the West Africans are left to themselves. Yet the five days' sail between the Canaries and Sierra Leone is as pleasant a part of the voyage as any. Whosoever wishes to lounge uninterruptedly and trouble himself not at all about anything in the world save the art of lighting his pipe in a gentle sea-breeze, will here find a warm and equable temperature most proper to his purposes. His only distraction will be to watch the flying-fishes and an occasional shoal of dolphins, or perhaps some grampus or other mighty monster of the tropical sea may leave his bower in the hollow billows and keep the steamer company a while. It would be pleasant to cruise here in a private yacht, which would give us an opportunity to enjoy that perfect serenity of mind and climate, without the prospect of ending the passage in the sultry harbour of Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. Yet the newcomer will hardly be inclined to abuse Sierra Leone, for with it comes his first impression of the Tropics, which is generally one of novelty and beauty, undarkened yet by the shadows of lassitude and malaria. From six to nine o'clock in the morning in the dry season it is pleasant enough to be ashore there. The crowd of chattering natives, the strange shrubs and trees unseen before, and the rich languor of tropical vegetation, fill the senses so completely that we are disinclined to consider too curiously the other side of the picture. The merriest and noisiest port of call on the coast is Cape Coast Castle, where some hundred and fifty natives paddle out in surf boats with bales of kola nuts on board, shouting strange keyless chants the while, and enjoying themselves with all that unrecoverable abandon of the natural man. The loading is done with the aid of cranes dropped from the steamer to the surf boats, whose crews shout and yell in a struggle to be the first to catch the ropes. Two men on rival boats will lay hold of one rope simultaneously, and hang on with the right hand while conducting a pugilistic encounter with the left. But the Cape Coast negro does not require a rival to set him talking. Among the same crew there are differences of opinion that are quite enough to raise a pretty clamour in themselves. "One man say we go do this: one man say we no go do this," was the lucid explanation of a native with whom I had some conversation, and whose language first introduced me to the jargon of Coast English. Meanwhile a number of fishlike creatures go swimming to and fro in the water, either to carry the crane-end to their own boat or out of sheer fun and high spirits. At times, in the midst of the gabble, & weird chant crosses the waters as another crew comes paddling up to add to the confusion. From the Fanti boatmen the Hausa traders, not a few of whom travel up and down in the Coast steamers, are easily distinguishable by their thinner lips and finer features, wearing white gowns for the most part and with huge silver rings upon their fingers. The Fantis never let one of these white-robed fellows get aboard without disputing hotly with him the amount of their fare for bringing him out to the steamer. I saw one unfortunate Hausa, who refused to com ply with their demands, pushed neatly into the sea amid shouts of laughter. The yelling of the boatmen, the noise of the crane, the confusion when a bale tips overboard into the sea, the cries of the passengers climbing aboard by ladder with all their worldly goods in a bundle between their strong white teeth, combine to make up a pandemonium such as you must go to the West Coast to see and hear, for you will not find its like anywhere else beneath the sun. Long before the boat reaches Cape Coast Castle, that mutual distrust I spoke of is sure to vanish, and the newcomer will have begun to form very pleasant ideas of the men who go to work in West Africa. After a little talk with men who know the country and treat its peculiar attributes as a matter of course, a trip to West Africa no longer appears so strange a leap into the unknown as it did when it was talked of in England. It is true that our first ideas of the country are probably drawn from a series of very tall travellers' tales. None are more expert than West Africans in weaving stories of insects of all shapes and sizes, and of the horrible ailments these creatures cause. A newcomer is considered fair game, and it is likely that his nights. will be disturbed by dreams of little worms that crawl under the toe-nails of men who venture to go slipperless, and burrow there until the nail is painfully removed. He is prepared also to see without |