THE SHOEBILL 149 
visiting the Cairo Gardens remember only this 
quaint bird, that it has become one of the most 
popular birds of the country, and is better known 
than very many of the true native Egyptian birds. 
Captain Stanley S. Flower says “he saw per- 
haps as many as forty in one day” during a trip 
on the White Nile. “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.” 
Mr. A. L. Butler says of it in its native wilds: 
“They seem of a very sluggish nature, and [I sel- 
dom observed them on the wing unless put up by 
our steamer.” And as to its food, he writes: “I 
have never known it attempt to eat shell-fish ; the 
bird is a fisher pure and simple, but doubtless, like 
a Heron, will eat any small mammal or young 
water-bird that comes within reach.” Heron-like, 
Balaeniceps, instead of searching for its prey, waits 
patiently for it to come to it. It is generally 
to be seen standing motionless on newly-burnt 
