70 



SAVAGE SUDAN 



STONE-CURLEWS. 



of mimosas ; also some of a smaller kind, Lovat's bustard, 

 of which we shot several. A bird which puzzled me for 

 long, and one of the last one would expect in arid wood- 

 lands, was a stone-curlew 

 (the big speckled species, 

 CEdicnemus affinis] ; when 

 half-seen, flying low be- 

 neath spreading boughs, 

 with their white-spangled 

 wings, they looked' more 

 like big nightjars till I 

 succeeded in shooting a 

 pair. [ Subsequently we 

 found them regularly fre- 

 quenting the most arid thickets far from water. Those 

 by the riverside belonged to a smaller species, striped 

 rather than spotted like these, and also noisier. The 

 scientific title of these latter is, I think, OE. senegalensis. 

 Another odd bird to find in the dry thorn-jungles is the 

 black-headed heron. The swarming beetles explain the 

 presence of both birds in such incon- 

 gruous surroundings. Guinea-fowl of 

 course abounded, the same species, 

 the Abyssinian helmeted guinea-fowl 

 (Numida ptilorhyncka), as we had 

 first shot at Lake Baringo. On our 

 way back to the ship I killed several, 

 and was amused to see our Baggara 

 friends retrieve winged birds after 

 a course of hundreds of yards through 

 deep grass and scrub ; when we 

 overtook them, they were busy cut- 

 ting the throats of the game with 

 their enormous spears. They also 

 attacked a hare with throwing-knobsticks. Whether 

 these weapons actually struck the animal or not, I could 

 not be sure ; but at any rate a lurcher-dog of theirs gave 



BLACK-HEADED HERON. 



