THE FORESTS OF KORDOFAN 111 



This morning, after the daybreak episode with eagles, 

 we pursued our ramble along" the riverside, and never 

 a mile but emphasised the fact that here we had entered 

 in geo-zoologic sense upon a New World, that 

 of Ethiopia. 1 The bird -life of the " Desert- Stretch" 

 (Chapter in.) had been largely of European type. Here 

 in Kordofan we were face to face with the bewilderments 

 of a Tropic Zone. 



Geographic distribution in the nature of things can 

 have no cast-iron limits. Birds of many genera, for 

 example, are cosmopolitans there are "globe-spanners" 

 which traverse our planet twice 

 a year several recognise no 

 set bounds whatever. Hence 

 these arbitrary faunal areas 

 are merely designed as arti- 

 ficial aids to study crutches 

 whereby science can lamely 

 limp along the devious path- 

 way toward knowledge. Still, 

 the system is approximately 

 correct, though never rigidly DARTERS. 



so. Thus already in the 



"Desert-Stretch" we had detected the northernmost 

 outposts the scouts of Ethiopia ; here, in like 

 degree, we still recognise a few Europeans. Below, 

 say the twelfth degree of North latitude, the tropical 

 type predominates ; in the tenth, the revolution is com- 

 plete, conspicuous to all who have eyes to see. 



Thus to-day one's eye in constant sequence kept 

 picking up creatures that in Europe would be as incon- 

 ceivable as pterodactyls or flying icthyosauri giant figures 

 such as the saddle-billed jabiru, clad in "thunder and 



1 Europe, combined with "North Africa down to Sahara, constitutes a 

 single integral zoological area, defined in science as the " Palasarctic 

 Region." Southwards from Sahara, all Africa is included in the region 

 distinguished as " Ethiopian." 



