30 FROM THE NIGER TO THE NILE 



inhabiting the sandy stretches overgrown with mimosa- 

 and gum-trees. It is a good example to illustrate the dis- 

 tribution of the Sudan avi-fauna, for its range across Africa 

 is by way of Kordofan, Lake Chad, Bornu and Senegal. The 

 last species we collected before leaving Nigeria was the 

 Persian bee-eater {Merops persicus), a bird with red throat 

 and a plumage of predominant green, and in size about the 

 same as the carmine-breasted bee-eater. We were fortunate 

 enough to secure several specimens out of a party which were 

 evidently on migration, but had dropped down to refresh 

 themselves on the shores of the Lake. 



This species has a remarkable range. It has seen the 

 plains of India, has travelled over the steppes of Turkestan, 

 passed the rugged hills of Arabia and come through fertile 

 Egypt, and here it is on the shores of Lake Chad. "What a 

 wonderful hfe its flight through the air must be, for ever 

 exposed to the full glare of the sun, and how grateful must 

 be the time when it comes to nest in the cool corridors of the 

 earth ! 



There are scarcely any birds in Africa that can be called 

 songsters in the sense that we apply the term to the summer 

 migrants in England, although there are many with quaint 

 and peculiar call-notes and chatterings which arrest the ear. 

 I have, however, in my mind at the present moment two 

 exceptions to this dearth of bird music : the one is the song 

 of the red thrush (Cossypha) of which I have spoken in a 

 preceding chapter, and which in tone and passionate 

 rendering is, to my mind, almost more beautiful than that 

 of the nightingale ; the other the song of a reed-warbler 

 {Lusciniola gracilirostris), of which the exquisitely melodious 



