240 SAVAGE SUDAN 



is one of the smartest of all our smart European wildfowl : 

 so any comparison with poor Dendrocygna is rather cruel. 

 Both teal and garganey whizzed past the tree-ducks as a 

 destroyer overhauls a mud-hopper. 



So unwary were all these ducks that they allowed me 

 to stroll past within easy gunshot provided always that 

 I kept to leeward. The moment they got the "wind," 

 they would spring, though 200 yards away. To illustrate 

 this fact : At one point a long jutting peninsula projected 

 far into the open water and directly athwart the northerly 

 breeze. On either side thereof sat columns of duck massed 

 some 60 or 70 yards offshore. Purely as an experiment, 



DARTERS. 

 " Flops up heavily." " Suspicious " (like periscopes). 



I walked out to the end, in full view ; not a single duck 

 to windward took the slightest notice ; whereas every one 

 under my lee rose in alarm as I advanced. 



It is one of the anomalies of animal-instinct that keen- 

 scented wildfowl (and certain big-game too) should fear 

 more what they scent without seeing than what they see 

 without scenting. In this case I had been in view all the 

 time, yet no danger was apprehended till the fowl got a 

 touch of the tainted wind. They had no fear of man ; 

 yet they feared his smell! 



The question Do birds possess the sense of smell ? 

 has long interested me since earliest punt-gunning days. 

 A reference to our classic authorities on ornithology long 

 ago showed that they all passed over the point in silence, 



