THE WESTERN BEND 239 



Jabiru and hammerhead, godwits, stilts, greenshanks in 

 two sizes, dunlins, ruffs and reeves, common, green, and 

 wood-sandpipers, redshank and plovers of three species ; 

 with pratincoles and Asiatic dotterels on the drier ground 

 inland. Buff-backed herons fed on the backs of cattle, 

 precisely as they do in Spain. Raised five snipes and 

 shot two also a 1 2-foot crocodile. 



Offshore, the waters were literally darkened with ducks. 

 These masses were largely composed of the African white- 



" SPREAD OUT TO DRY." DARTER. DARTER ON WING. (Note the "kink.") 



faced tree-duck or "whistling-teal " (Dendrocygna viduata}? 

 together with both our common teal and garganey. The 

 essential difference in flight between the two contingents 

 shall I call them the Palsearctic and the Ethiopian? 

 was strikingly contrasted, as seen side by side. Our little 

 European sprinters lifted from water light as summer- 

 butterflies and sped like arrows through the air ; whereas 

 our dear little African friend splashes up heavily as a coot, 

 with great ungainly feet hanging below, and his subsequent 

 flight is flopping and laboured. The garganey, of course, 



1 These tree-ducks take at least two years, if not more, to acquire full 

 adult plumage. In adults, the beak has a subterminal patch of blue, with 

 a black nail. They never perch on trees. 



