118 Mr. F. C. Selous on 



feet deep, and all pushing together. At length, after a 

 e()iij)le of hours' hard work, wc pushed our boat into a 

 little open lagoon in the middle of" tlie cane-brake and at once 

 .saw that we were close upon the nesting-site of a great 

 bird-colony. Glossy Ibises, Night- Herons, and Little Egrets 

 rose in clouds from the reeds, just beyond the lagoon, 

 and among them were a few pairs of Great White Egrets 

 and Squacco Herons, but there did not appear to be any 

 Common or Purple Herons in the colony. After crossing 

 the lagoon, we worked the boat for some twenty yards 

 further into the reeds, and then saw numbers of nests in 

 front of us. Two nests, with eggs somewhat larger than 

 those of either the Common or the Purple Heron, were rather 

 bulky, and were built on broken-down retds, some three 

 feet above the water. These two nests were very like nests 

 of the Purple Heron which I have seen in Hungary, but as 

 we saw no Purple Herons here, and as we did see several 

 pairs of Great White Herons, I feel sure that they belonged 

 to the latter bird. One of these nests contained two, and 

 the other four eggs. All the other nests, those of the 

 Glossy Ibis, Little Egret, Night-Heron, and Squacco Heron, 

 were built of reeds right down on the surface of the water. 

 The Little Egrets had been, I think, the first to lay ; at 

 least all the nests that had full clutches were, I believe, 

 those of Little Egrets. The Ibises and Night-Herons were 

 only just beginning to lay. The dark greeny blue eggs of the 

 former were of course unmistakable, and those nests which 

 we took to belong to Night-Herons were, many of them, 

 empty, while none of them contained more than two eggs; 

 these eggs appearing to me to be all somewhat larger than 

 the full clutches which, I think, belonged to the Little Egrets. 

 We found two nests of the Squacco Heron with eggs, and 

 one Pygmy Cormorant's nest with four eggs. After collecting 

 and marking a few eggs of each species we set out on our 

 return journey, and, getting back to the gipsy encampment 

 by 5 o'clock, reached Sakizbounou just as it was growing 

 dusk. The gipsies told us that the Wild Swans always nested 

 in the centre of one of the little open lagoons in the great 



