

THE RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO 435 



tempered, and rather daunted the spurwings by the way 

 they opened their enormous beaks at them. The fish eagles 

 fed exclusively on fish, as far as we could tell, and there were 

 piles of fish bones and heads under their favorite perches. 

 Once I saw one plunge into the water, but it failed to 

 catch anything. Another time, suddenly, and seemingly 

 in mere mischief, one attacked a purple heron which was 

 standing on a mud bank. The eagle swooped down from a 

 tree and knocked over the heron; and when the astonished 

 heron struggled to its feet and attempted to fly off, the eagle 

 made another swoop and this time knocked it into the water. 

 The heron then edged into the papyrus, and the eagle paid 

 it no further attention. 



In this camp we had to watch the white ants, which strove 

 to devour everything. They are nocturnal, and work in 

 the daytime only under the tunnels of earth which they 

 build over the surface of the box, or whatever else it is, 

 that they are devouring; they eat out everything, leaving 

 this outside shell of earth. We also saw a long column of 

 the dreaded driver ants. These are carnivorous; I have seen 

 both red and black species; they kill every living thing in 

 their path, and I have known them at night drive all the 

 men in a camp out into the jungle to fight the mosquitoes 

 unprotected until daylight. On another occasion, where a 

 steamboat was moored close to a bank, an ant column 

 entered the boat after nightfall, and kept complete posses- 

 sion of it for forty-eight hours. Fires, and boiling water, 

 offer the only effectual means of resistance. The bees are 

 at times as formidable; when their nests are disturbed they 

 will attack every one in sight, driving all the crew of a boat 

 overboard or scattering a safari, and not infrequently kill- 



