Exhibit in Chicago Natural History Museum 



Birds of a Nile Papyrus Marsh 



The scene of this group is Lake Kyoga on the upper Victoria Nile, just below where 

 it flows out of Lake Victoria in LTganda, eastern Africa. Ahead, the water dappled with 

 lily- pads stretches to the horizon. To the right, lines of papyrus break the view and 

 frame the vista. To the left, marsh-grass areas dotted with a few trees or bushes appear, 

 flanking low, distant, blue hills. 



The central figures are the whale-headed stork and the crowned crane. The whale- 

 head, related to the stork, is the sole species in the family Balaenicipitidae with a dis- 

 tribution restricted to the swamps of central Africa. It is a somberly colored grayish 

 bird with a huge bill and a curious pert crest. Its home is in the big marshes. Because 

 it is usually a solitary bird, we have placed a single individual near the right front of 

 the case. 



The other African bird chosen to share the focal point in the case is the crowned 

 crane. Contrasted with the whale-head it is a graceful, active, beautiful, and well- 

 known bird. The straw-colored crest recalls in a curious way the fruiting head of a 

 papyrus — the wattles are crimson, the bare cheeks white and crimson, and the plum- 

 age gray, ornamented with big patches of white and maroon in the wings. The bird is 

 gregarious— flocks of several hundreds have been recorded, and as many as a thousand 

 birds have been seen in a twenty-minute flight past a camp. They frequent grain fields, 



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