VOYAGE UP WHITE NILE 47 



us beneath them, the geese all bunched together with 

 a curious whistling chorus, and a rifle-bullet, chanced 

 " through the brown," brought one to earth weight, 1 3 Ib. 

 None of these geese are good eating, though a young 

 Chenalopex may be passable. Of course, the fierce heat 

 of Sudan which necessitates everything being cooked 

 at once, gives neither bird nor beast a fair chance ; and 

 here it may be remarked that an absolutely indispensable 

 adjunct to the outfit is a "mincing machine," which 

 reduces all flesh to one common denominator mince ! 

 Characterless it is, but, after all, food and that is all 

 one should require. 



HEADS OF SPUR-WINGED AND COMB GEESE. 



No British wildfowler habituated to the trim and 

 smart figures of our European Anatidae, spick and span 

 one and all but must be painfully impressed by the 

 different and degenerate aspect of their Ethiopian con- 

 geners. All these Nilotic wildfowl present to his eye 

 contours and carriage that by comparison can only be 

 characterised as clumsy and ungainly almost slovenly. 

 The great spur-winged goose, for example, squats on a 

 sand-bank more untidy than Sarah Jane the scullion, its 

 long scapulars and tertiaries sticking up at sixes and 

 sevens ; while its slouching gait and unsightly headgear 

 recall that grotesque creature, the Muscovy duck. 1 Nor 

 has the comb-goose (Sarciordornis melanonota, shortly to 

 come under notice) any greater claim to elegance, whether 



1 The simile is corroborated by the fact that in South Africa the Boer 

 name for the spurwing goose is Wilde Afacaaue, signifying Wild Muscovy. 



