THE FORESTS OF KORDOFAN 



115 



headed herons, a brace of francolins and a mongoose 

 (a hedgehog, picked up in mummified state, not counted). 

 The mongoose I shot last thing at dusk. It reared itself 

 up in the long grass to see what was passing a thick-set, 

 rabbit-sized little beastig with bloodshot eyes, altogether 

 ruddier and less slim than those we have shot in Spain, 

 besides being banded, zebra-fashion, with black. Along- 

 side it, half-eaten, lay one of those luridly coloured lizards 

 in cobalt and orange (Agama colonorunt) that frequent 

 these regions. My men, I 

 was told, ate the mongoose 

 (Crossarckus zebra]. 



(2) CAN DACE, January 

 26th, 1914, about 10-15 

 North latitude (south of 

 Melut - similar country, 

 bill forest more open}. 

 Amidst one of the usual 

 mobs of exotic water-fowl 

 assembled alongshore, I 

 detected a bird new to me 



and unobserved during previous voyages. This was a 

 Bishop-stork (Episcopus\ recognisable by its downy white 

 nape and the loose fluffy feathers that adorn its breast. 

 Ere we could land the stranger had disappeared, but amidst 

 the crowd that remained were two great white egrets 

 (Herodias alba\ already at this early date in that full 

 nuptial plumage that has proved so fatal to their race. 1 

 Should I be honoured by a lady reader, she will better 

 recognise the bird under the milliners' title of "osprey." 

 Both these exquisite creatures I secured, the same shot 

 killing by accident a greenshank and two spurwing plovers. 

 Half a mile further on, by a stagnant water-course, I 



1 This early assumption of the nuptial plumes is exceptional. We 

 observed great white egrets much later than this without a sign of these 

 adornments in 1919 as late as March gth. 



BISHOP-STORK. 



