on the Shoebill.



199



9. Habits. Very little is known for certain about its

habits ; the account in most books as, for instance, the “ Royal

Natural History” (Vol. IV., pp. 303-4, 1895) is taken from

Heuglin, and even the late Prof. Newton in his “ Dictionary of

Birds,” p. 839, says that Petherick “ discovered its mode of nidi-

fication.” From Heuglin’s own account it appears his informa¬

tion about the Shoebill was mainly based on native reports, he

appears never to have himself examined a specimen alive or in

the flesh, and only to have observed a few in a wild state near

Rake Ambadi.


Pethericlc’s account (P.Z.S. i860, pp. 195-198) is interesting

to read, but, I wish to remark, requires confirmation and, to quote

my clever old friend and former instructor the late Mr. A. D.

Bartlett, “I do so with considerable uneasiness lest I should be

accused of casting a doubt upon the veracity of the gentleman to

whom we are indebted for the first living specimens of this rare

bird” (see P.Z.S. 1861, p. 134).


In many pictures of Shoebills in books of natural history

and travel the bird is represented as walking in the water, a most

unusual thing for a Shoebill to do. Of over sixty specimens of

Balaeniceps that I have seen in a wild state, I do not recollect

seeing one in the water. A. R. Butler writes: “ I never saw the

bird actually wading in water.”


The Shoebills at Giza are kept in a large green paddock,

three hundred and twenty four and a quarter yards (296‘5 metres)

in circumference, provided with a small pond and also a piece of

artificially swamped ground, when walking about they always

carefully avoid the swamp, deliberately walking round the dry

edge. In over five and a half years my wife and I have only

twice seen a Shoebill in the pond, and in eighteen months Mr.

M. J. Nicoll tells me he has only once seen the same sight; we

did not see the bird enter the pond, and think that most probably

011 each of these three occasions it had accidentally fallen in.

Of the Khartoum specimen Mr. A. R. Butler writes: “This in¬

dividual shews no disposition whatever to enter water, and seems

to prefer the driest and sunniest spots in the garden.”


The birds in captivity are very morose and somewhat

quarrelsome ; fierce fights have taken place between them, but



