614 Colonel S. R. Clarke on [Ibis, 



men in Rhodesia they have been able to cross the native 

 curs with greyhounds, and their dogs nowadays are fast, and 

 with tlieir assistance they kill, besides many o£ the smaller 

 buck, such as Oribi, the young of the largest antelopes, and 

 probably do a great deal towards reducing the numbers of 

 the big buck. Tliere are still, however, plenty left for sport 

 of most of the species of the latter that were originally tonnd 

 in the country' — the Roan, wliich appears to like sour veld, 

 and the Eland, which subsist largely by browsing, are the 

 most generally distributed ; while the Kudu, which desire 

 thick covert to hide in, and the Sable, which seem to prefer 

 light soil with short sweet grass and open park-like country 

 shiided by large trees, are much more locally distributed. 

 Our camps until we crossed the Kafue were generally 

 pitched by a pan of water near to spots where there was a 

 chance of finding one or both of these two antelopes. 



These pans were sometimes deep enough to hold water 

 permanently through the dry season, but generally they 

 represented the last of the summer flootls now drying up, 

 often grass grew all over them, and until one waded in and 

 partetl the grass stems by one's hands, the water did not 

 show : still, if care was taken to till drinking-water vessels 

 well away from the bank, the water was generally perfectly 

 sweet and good, but twice in the Kafue Flats we got to 

 bad water ; the first time we attributed the cause to a peaty 

 soil, and on the second occasion to the hundreds, perhaps 

 thousands, of Spurwing Geese that came to this pan every 

 evening. At the deeper pans there w^ere the usual number 

 of thirsty land-birds congregated to drink, especially Doves, 

 and at the largest of them were several Darters and a ])air of 

 ver}- tame Fishing Eagles {Haliaetus rocifer), but the shallow 

 pans were tenanted by wading- and water-birds in addition : 

 generally there was a pair of Saddle-billed Storks (Ephip- 

 piorliynclius senegalensis), a flock of Open-bills, Crowned 

 Cranes, and other wading birds ; among them I was inter- 

 ested to see the Common Sandpiper, and obtained a specimen 

 on the 15th of August. A fortnight later, on the banks of the 

 Kafue River, I saw Greenshanks. I am quite sure that the 



