ERKOWIT 381 



Alongside these ravens soared kites ; but kites 

 conspicuously different from our customary camp- 

 scavenger. All kites have white heads, but in these a 

 bold dark blotch covered the auriculars recalling- the 

 head of a marsh-harrier. A broad band, lighter than 

 usual, also extended across the underwings, and their 

 tails were rather more deeply forked than these of the 

 everyday kite. I remember seeing a kite on Blue Nile 

 that I mentally noted as Milvus regalis ; now, I conclude, 

 it was merely a wanderer of this Erkowit type. 



ERKOWIT KITE PERCHED ON HEAD OF ISABELLINE GAZELLE. 



In retrospect, Erkowit leaves the impression of a 

 place apart half outside our world of to-day, in some 

 sense a survival of long departed ages. Much of its 

 fauna and especially of its flora appear prehistoric, 

 antediluvian witness those wraith-like ravens, the 

 monstrously coiffured baboons, the dracaena and caraib, 

 and the lammergeyer to me ever reminiscent of the 

 Pleistocene with its flying-dragons. Worthily to treat 

 such subjects lies beyond my power ; yet visions of 

 gorgeous butterflies flit through the mental retrospect ; of 

 strange insects and yet stranger reptiles and beasties ; 

 there were jumping jefbils, and jerboas with exaggerated 

 femurs and bushy hare-like feet ; hares which appeared 

 all ears ; spiny mice, and unknown bats which yielded 



