48 SAVAGE SUDAN 



on wing 1 or water his flight laboured and lumbering, with 

 neck stuck out rigidly straight and an ugly excrescence 

 on the beak. Even the Egyptian goose, despite a 

 handsome coloration, lacks smartness in carriage and all 

 pride of race. His plumage is loose and dowdy; his 

 flopping flight, almost cormorant-like, harsh corvine croak, 

 and drooping stern anything but anserine. Whole troops 

 of all these three lie unkempt and ragged, slumbering 

 the hours away, and never a sentry to be seen. By 

 comparison, in fifty years' wildfowling at home, never 

 once have I detected a brent-goose asleep, or wild-geese 

 of any kind unprotected by sentinels. 



Should the theory of the Polar origin of life be accept- 

 able, it would appear, in this case, that those forms which 

 have selected the Equator as a residence have deteriorated 

 most. Perhaps the deduction may have a wider bearing 

 than upon wild-geese alone. 



The ruddy sheldrakes, constant companions of the 

 geese, closely resemble them both in character and habit. 

 Squatting flat on the russet sand, these goose-like ducks 

 assimilate in marvellous degree with their environment. 

 They are, of course, detected at once by an eye that is 

 looking for them and knows what to look for ; still it is 

 a startling transformation-scene when they rise on wing, 

 and objects hitherto of a dead monotone suddenly resolve 

 into splashes of the boldest contrasted colours. In rest, 

 the ruddy sheldrake conceals these striking features ; 

 hence nearly all illustrations (and equally mounted 

 specimens) convey a wrong impression of the bird in 

 life. It is, of course, manifestly indecorous (and incon- 

 siderate to artists) that birds should thus conceal their 

 beauty-spots from view as a lady might hide some 

 exquisite Parisian "creation" beneath a worsted dressing- 

 gown but when it is Nature's way, we should be 

 constrained faithfully to follow. 



In mid-winter, these Nile geese as would naturally 

 be expected proved wild in the extreme, almost inacces- 



