BLUE NILE AND BINDER RIVER 



323 



new to science, Taterillus gyas (Ann. and Mag". Nat. 

 Hist., 1918, p. 150). There were also ground-squirrels, 

 pretty striped creatures of 2 Ib. weight, that lived in 

 holes and eschewed arboreal haunts. They sat up exactly 

 as our British squirrels do, to eat with their fore-paws, 

 and when alarmed stood bolt upright to reconnoitre, 

 balancing on their tails. That appendage is dead-flat, 

 the long lateral hair directed horizontally outward, more 



BRIDLED BEE-EATER (Merops frenatus}. 



PARADISE WHYDAH-FINCHES. 



like the plumes of an ostrich than the tail of a mammal. 

 Small hares, weighing 3! to 3! Ib., were numerous, and 

 we also caught striped rats, spiny mice, and other 

 members of that innumerable tribe. 



Beyond the dry bed of Binder, lay forests more 

 striking in their tropical luxuriance than any on White 

 Nile. Huge trees jostled each other, many smothered 

 in parasitic growths resembling a tracery of knotted 

 ropes stretching aloft, or pendent in infinite bights like 

 the rigging of an old-time " East- Indiaman." Cactus- 

 like creepers adorned with orange and crimson blooms 

 spread from trunk to trunk ; and there were scansorial 



