84 Bird Hunting on the White Nile. 



except perhaps in broken light. With the brown- 

 coloured common bittern, which adopts the same pose, 

 the case would be dijQFerent. One might suppose, how- 

 ever, that the little bittern itself considered the attitude 

 a complete protection by adopting it on the approach 

 of danger, and by remaining motionless through such 

 a terrifying ordeal as the sound of the twenty shots I 

 have mentioned. Had the bird frequented the thicker 

 trees, its stick-like attitude might have saved it from 

 detection, but in the open trees in which we generally 

 found it the trick was a ludicrous failure. 



There were other birds in this country which either 

 by their protective colouring or by their attitudes were 

 rendered inconspicuous and often invisible. Those which 

 relied upon their colour for concealment were, as would 

 be expected, birds of the open country, and their colour- 

 ing was, of course, like the sand. Of those I have 

 mentioned — various S23ecies of larks were difficult to see 

 even when they were flying, the fantail warbler was 

 exactly the colour of sand or dead grass; the sandgrouse 

 was impossible to distinguish at a short distance in the 

 desert, as were the cream-coloured coursers on the sand 

 by the river. The birds living amongst the trees de- 

 pended upon the thickness of the branches and twigs 

 for concealment, and although there were few trees with 



