xxvni BEAKS 349 



with soft lower tail coverts, worn by fashionable ladies 

 as marabou feathers. It is odd that this, the ugliest 

 of birds, should furnish such exquisite feathers. The 

 curious pouch is filled with air. and opens into the 

 nasal passage on the left side below the orbit ; the bird 

 can inflate it at will. The marabou-stork is an efficient 

 scavenger and may be seen sailing high in the air, and 

 descends when it descries carrion. This bird is feared 

 by the vultures when it drops among them whilst they 

 are gorging on a carcase. His long and powerful bill 

 earns for him so much respect among carrion eaters 

 that he has been termed by the natives, and not inaptly, 

 " the master of the feast." 



The marabou eats fishes, also termites when they 

 swarm. I am not likely to forget the pleasure with 

 which I watched at daybreak an enormous congregation 

 of birds around a pool in the middle of a swamp, an 

 acre in extent, near Tewfikia (White Nile). There were 

 thirty marabous. The specific name of these birds, 

 crumenifer, signifies the bearer of a purse or money 

 bag ; they are caricature-likenesses of bald-headed 

 vergers. Among the birds were twenty-three sacred 

 ibises, looking like acolytes, a fiock of white herons 

 which arose like a cloud when I approached too near ; 

 seven tufted umbres, many plovers, and numerous 

 wading birds. One of the party shot a marabou, and I 

 found in the crop seven fishes the size of large sprats. 

 The buzzards soon came around for the spoil. 



The bills of herons and cormorants are admirable 

 forceps for securing fishes ; the darter is furnished with 

 an excellent spear for transfixing such slippery food, 

 and the pelican possesses an excellent scoop with which 

 to catch them wholesale. There is another bird which 

 frequents the Central African lakes and the White Nile, 

 known as the skimmer or scissor-bill, with the most 

 extraordinary beak ever designed for fishing. The bill 

 and the bird are so peculiar that they attract attention 

 from the least observant. The bill is flattened in the 



