Storks & Cranes 239 



deal to drive away the waders and ducks of various 

 species, but a constant persecution at the hand of 

 Europeans has lamentably lessened their numbers. 



I remember how anxious my Syrian dragoman was 

 to have a shot from our Dahabeah at a griffon vulture, 

 which was floating down stream on the carcase of a 

 dead donkey. 



But I indignantly forbade such useless slaughter of 

 a most useful bird. 



Its dead body would have floated away to be, in its 

 turn, the same sort of stuff as that on which it was 

 feeding. 



Let us hope that stringent laws will be made, and 

 carried out, for the protection of birds and animals in 

 the Soudan. 



People say that there are thousands of such and 

 such a bird. 



Yes ! no doubt there are ! 



But there are also thousands of a kind of tourist, 

 who, without any real interest in collecting bird-skins 

 for scientific purposes, bang away at everything they 

 see. 



There used to be thousands, to use a fafon 

 de parler^ of buff-backed herons all along the Nile. 

 In the winter of 1899, though I was constantly 

 spying at every bird I saw, through my glasses, I 

 should think that fifty was the limit of these birds' 

 numbers. 



We came across them only very occasionally. My 

 dragoman told me that he remembered the fields white 

 with them some thirty years ago. Yet one of the 



