BLUE NILE AND BINDER RIVER 



315 



DOVES IN THE DUSK. 



hung foliage, with broken lights, lent a quality of mystery 

 to the great contorted roots beneath as seen in shade, 

 their convolutions re- 

 sembled the writhings of HMHHBHHHHHHH 

 some huge saurians of 

 geologic period. 



Upon each stretch of 

 open water floated flotillas 

 of ducks pintail, wigeon, 

 shoveler, teal, garganey, 

 pochard (probably Nyroca] 

 while the shallows and 

 foreshores teemed with 

 waders, varying in size 

 from giant marabou and 



crowned cranes down to the tiniest stints (Tring'a 

 minuta] ; and the trees above were crowded with fish- 

 eagles, storks, open-bills, egrets, ibises, and the rest of 

 that Ethiopian ilk. It is unnecessary here to catalogue 

 the whole assembly ; though a few of the less usual 

 deserve a note. Black-tailed godwits were probing up to 



their ears in rotten ooze, 

 and with them an avocet 

 the only bird of its kind 

 I ever saw in the Sudan. 

 Together with innumer- 

 able ruffs and reeves, were 

 greenshanks, green and 

 marsh-sandpipers ( Totanus 

 stagnatilis\ as well as the 

 curious white - tailed lap- 

 WHITE-TAILED LAPWING. wing ( Vanellus leucurus\ 



a counterpart save in 



colour of our familiar peewit at home, but striking in 

 respect to its marked"*" assimilation to environment." 



Detailed investigation of a focal point such as this 

 would obviously entail a sojourn of some days ; but any 



