320 SAVAGE SUDAN 



buntings, pytelias, fire-finches, and cut-throats (feathered), 

 wood-hoopoes, warblers, coucals, glossy starlings in 

 short, the whole passerine population. Within a given 

 minute, weaver-finches in timorous clouds swept down 

 a score of times, alighted for half a second, then as 

 instantly, in mighty flutteration, rose again too nervous 

 to drink ! But nervous they may well be and with 

 reason. For these sequestered water-holes, few and far 

 between, afford Utopian hunting-grounds to eagles, 

 hawks, and raptores of every denomination. Here 



BUSH-CUCKOO {Centropus Superciliosus). 

 Coming Down to Drink. 



violence reigns supreme and tragedies are incessant. 

 Suddenly, round some bush-clad point, flashes a hawk 

 (Melierax g'abar\ whips into the terrified crowd, clutches 

 one victim ere it can gain shelter ; a second which, in 

 panic, had grazed the ground a smart right-and-left 

 within 6 feet of our eyes! Then a great white-headed 

 eagle flaps slowly by, bearing, suspended from bushy 

 talon, what appears a table-cloth. The eagle directs an 

 upward course to some tall tree, where for the next 

 half-hour we can watch him dismembering his victim 

 a spoonbill, probably, or a great white egret, for Aquila 

 non capit muscas (and table-cloths still less). 



Through and through that helpless, hapless throng all 

 rounded-up, remember, by thirst there sheer peregrines 

 and lanner-falcons, dealing death and destruction while 



