BLUE NILE AND BINDER RIVER 321 



you watch ; there are eagles too, also goshawks in two 

 sizes, and fierce harriers, together with the small fry 

 of the fleet "destroyers" such as the dashing merlin 

 (Falco ruficollis], kestrels of sorts, and manifold forms 

 of death, each with piercing eye, a lightning speed, and 

 ready talon. 



Beneath, in the depths of the pool, lurk hungry 

 " water- wolves " (Hydrocyon\ along with shoals of other 

 voracious fish- not to mention crocodiles each ready 

 to engulf any and every living creature that ventures 

 within their reach ; or as oft haps is forced down 

 in panic upon the deceptive surface. This explains why 

 the martins and the bejewelled bee-eaters (though ever 

 busy insect -hawking over the pools) are careful to 

 preserve a margin of safety ; yet even so, Mr Butler 

 records having seen bee-eaters fall victims to a flying 

 leap from under water (Ibis, 1905, p. 349). 



Such scenes of ordered violence and bloodshed 

 striking to us denizens of tamer lands where the full 

 barbarity of the prime has almost ceased to obtrude 

 represent, nevertheless, nothing more than Nature's 

 schemes for the survival of the fittest, the struggle for 

 existence, etc., in full view and actual operation. Anarchy, 

 or the tyranny of the strong, are perhaps the best 

 definitions. 



In these respects Nature's methods run in the main 

 on rough and ready not to say barbarous lines ; but 

 curious discrepancies appear. Thus a troop of grivet 

 monkeys, emerging from the bush-clad bank opposite, 

 cross the glowing sand ; they move with mincing step, 

 and every few yards a sentry will stand bolt upright 

 to reconnoitre. Yet almost overhead, conspicuously 

 posted on a tall tamarind-tree, sits a great white-headed 

 eagle. Him the monkeys utterly ignore ; and the neglect 

 is reciprocal. Why -does the eagle refuse so soft a 

 chance ? One can only assume that, unlike the Arabs, he 

 is not Pithecophagous, and, moreover, that the monkeys 



x 



