LAKE NO 251 



In other individuals the chestnut feature was entirely 

 omitted. This was a female, weight 3 Ib. ; males weigh 

 4 Ib. They are most quarrelsome creatures. 



The following year my hammerhead's tree had gone 

 burnt in some grass-fire i 1 but we secured quite a notable 

 prize close by its site. It was February 23rd a date 

 ever associated in my mind with our triumph over 

 elephants related in On Safari. This year it was to be 

 with elephant-shrews ! These little creatures have their 

 headquarters among clumps of strong red reed-grass, 



SCISSOR-BILL. " Scissoring." OPENBILL. 



spending their days in the sun-cracks deep beneath. 

 Amidst this grass, in their run-ways, we trapped three, 



1 The Hammerhead is a shy, reclusive denizen of the swamp ; yet in 

 the breeding-season (like rooks at home) sometimes seeks civilised society. 

 Thus, during our voyage of 1919, we found one of their enormous nests 

 3 feet high by 3 feet broad across the top, though the bird itself is 

 scarcely bigger than our British waterhen in a tree in the Officers' 

 Compound at Malakal. The birds' nearest neighbour, Captain B. D. Grew, 

 Northumberland Fusiliers (who wore four wound-stripes), told me that 

 the hammerheads had spent four months in the construction of this 

 edifice January to April, 1918. Both birds worked from dawn till 8 A.M., 

 and again from 4 P.M. till dark four or five hours daily. This year 

 (1919) no eggs had been laid up to March 9th. A pair of hagedash ibises 

 also nested in these gardens j while at Tewfikia, a few miles south, 

 another pair of hammerheads were wont to nest in the compound till 

 evicted by reason of the matutinal uproar they created ! In all nests of 

 the hammerhead the entrance faces due east. 



