WILD-FOWL 35 



teal, and South African pochard. Away over 

 towards the other side half a dozen pelicans 

 swam leisurely on the surface ; great ash-grey 

 herons looked meditatively into the water at 

 their feet, white egrets dotted the rushes, snake 

 birds sat on the partly submerged roots, their 

 wings held stiffly out to dry after their last 

 plunge, whilst numbers of shore birds ran in 

 and out at the foot of the reeds and over the 

 secure foothold afforded by the big flopping 

 water-lily leaves. Altogether it was a sight 

 which one felt one would have come a long way 

 to see. At my first shot there arose upon the 

 air such a thunder of wings, such a hurricane 

 of quackings and squawks and whistlings and 

 shrillings, as I have never heard before or since. 

 Not only from the piece of water before me, 

 but from all the concealed surrounding pools 

 the air was darkened and absolutely palpitated 

 with thousands upon thousands of rapid wing- 

 strokes. The metallic staccato note of the teal, 

 the piercing whistle of the plover and whimbrels, 

 and the raucous bark of the giant heron, all made 

 together a perfect pandemonium of wild cries, 

 greatly increased in volume by the oft-repeated, 

 insane, half-human laugh of the brown-plumaged, 

 strident hadada. In a few brief moments I 

 had killed enough duck to have furnished several 

 camps, so, laden with my spoils, I withdrew; but so 

 astonishingly tame were the birds that, although 

 I must have fired at least twenty shots, no sooner 

 had I recalled my retrieving natives from the 

 shallow water into which the victims had fallen, 



