1900.] FAUNA OP THE WHITE NILE. 963 



PSEUDOTANTALUS IBIS (L.). 



The African Tantalus was noted on 17 days out of the 47: 

 on the White Nile from near Omdurman southwards, on the Jebel, 

 Ghazal, and Arab rivers, and on Lake Ambadi. Like the Maribous, 

 these birds are but little frightened of men and their ways ; I have 

 seen them not fly away till the steamer was within about twenty 

 yards of them. They are very handsome birds, with, as a rule, such 

 beautifully clean-looking white plumage and cheerful ruddy faces. 

 They often congregate in flocks ; the largest number of individuals 

 I have counted in a flock was forty -three. 



Family Bal^nicipitid.e. 



Bal^niceps eex Gould. 



The Shoebill or Whaleheaded Stork is termed in Arabic " Abu 

 Markiib," i. e. father of a slipper. On the 28th March we first came 

 on this species, a solitary specimen, in a marsh near Lake No ; on 

 the 29th while steaming up the Bahr-el-Ghazal we saw three or 

 four ; on the 30th a few more on Lake Ambadi, one was shot and the 

 skin preserved ; on the 31st we saw many, as the following extract 

 from my diary shows : — " "Whaleheaded Stork : saw perhaps forty 

 or fifty in the course of the day ; we tried hard to shoot another 

 specimen with our rifles, but nobody managed to hit one ; it is very 

 curious that while all the other birds here (never having been shot 

 at) are comparatively tame and easy to approach within fifty yards 

 or less, the Balceniceps is very shy, usually flying off at about three 

 hundred yards or even further, and it was very seldom we got a shot 

 at them under two hundred yards, which from a moving steamer is 

 not easy. They were to be seen usually singly, sometimes two or 

 three within a score of yards of each other, standing about on the 

 edges of the marsh, always in the same attitude; in the motionless 

 way in which they stand, their solitariness, and their flight, they are 

 more like a heron than a stork ; in fact, at a distance, unless you 

 can see the bill, it is impossible to tell them, when on the wing, 

 from the Goliath Heron. They were most numerous by Lake 

 Ambadi, but occurred at intervals all along the Bahr-el-Ghazal." 

 On the 3rd of April we saw two near the mouth of the Bahr-el- 

 Jebel, on the 5th one near Heliat Nuer ; on the 7th we saw seven 

 during the afternoon, either singly or in pairs, as usual seen 

 standing motionless in the swamp, and very 3hy ; and on the 8th 

 we saw one within about thirty miles north of Shambe. 

 Notes on specimen shot, Lake Ambadi, 30th March : — 

 Iris very pale yellow. Eyelids and skin between bill and eye 

 blue-grey like the feathers of the head, but the lower eyelid has a 

 patch of small white feathers on it. Bill horn-colour, upper 

 mandible being greyish towards base. Legs, feet, and claws 

 black. 



Pnoc. Zool. Soc— 1900, No. LXIII. 63 



