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SAVAGE SUDAN 



unknown parasites. Lizards some fiercely frilled, others 

 of daring- patterns leered from rock-crannies or darted 

 across burning- boulders amidst which snakes also, in 

 assorted sizes, glide from view. One of our ophidian 

 captures proved to belong to a race previously unknown 

 in Africa, whether specifically or generically, his nearest 

 relatives inhabiting- Syria and Persia. Contia africana 

 is the title allotted to this scaly prize of 400 millimetres. 

 I recall a nerve-trying hour when (not having the faintest 

 idea whether the captive belonged to the deadly sect or 



otherwise) we were induc- 

 ing him to leave a recep- 

 tacle which was empty and 

 enter a second which was 

 half full of methylated 

 spirit. The latter concoc- 

 tion, he knew, was not 

 healthy for serpents ; but 

 he had to go, and now has 

 the honour and glory of 

 being a 'Type." The 

 abounding reptile-life pre- 

 dicates the presence of the 



mongoose. One we shot in the act of chasing a lizard ; 

 another, of a sandy-fawn colour, was lost, wounded, in 

 a rock-recess, or might almost certainly have proved to 

 be Herpestes gracilis. 



Erkowit is not a big-game country. A few gazelles 

 with klipspringers and dikdik are found here, while 

 hyenas and jackals abound. But ibex do not frequent 

 the immediate neighbourhood, though farther south these 

 fine game-animals are numerous. Our original pro- 

 gramme had included an expedition to the ibex-country 

 among the Karora hills, lying on the Eritrean border 

 "Bluebell Mountain" (so called because that homely 

 flower flourishes on its dew-drenched heights) being our 

 destination. These hills lie within two or three days 



HEAD OF ERKOWIT KITE. 



