ISANGILA TO MANYANGA. 91 
yard; and on the shore of the stream and along the island 
beaches would show banks of dazzling white sand, ap- 
parently above flood-mark, since numbers of pratincoles- 
had made their nest there. These pretty little birds, called 
scientifically Glareola,* are really small waders allied to 
the plovers, with, perhaps, even a far off relationship to 
pigeons and sand-grouse; but to a superficial observer 
they seem merely large, stout swallows, and certainly 
resemble these birds by the way in which they pursue the 
insects over the surface of the water, flying low and 
catching their prey in mid-flight. On the Congo, between 
Isangila and Manyanga, they are found in flocks of over a 
thousand at a time, absolutely covering the isolated rocks 
on which they perch.t Perhaps their presence in such 
large numbers is the reason why in this stretch of the 
river mosquitoes are so happily absent. 
In the broader parts of the Congo, groups of trees stand 
in the very middle of the river, stemming its rapid flood. 
They must mark the sites of rocks and’ banks uncovered 
in the dry season, or, more probably, of newly submerged 
islands, for otherwise the seedling tree could hardly have 
attained sufficient growth in one dry season to withstand 
the river’s flood. Some distance beyond the Itunzima 
Falls, which are not very striking, the Congo broadens — 
greatly ; but nearmg Manyanga, the scenery of the river 
becomes in the highest degree commonplace. Low red 
hills, streaked and spotted with dull yellow-green, and 
fringed at their bases with scanty forest, border the great 
watercourse, which itself seems to have renounced all its 
high spirits and to have assumed a wearisome platitude of 
expression. 
Groups of natives on the south bank are squatting on 
the sand, with their fishing-nets put up to dry. Their 
* Probably G. Nordmani. 
7 In the ‘Last Journal of W. A. Forbes,’ whose death was one 
of the greatest losses British science has sustained (he died on the 
Niger, in January, 1883), I find the following extract referring to 
his journey up the Niger (p. 514, ‘Ibis,’ Oct. 1883). “On one of 
the banks, Glareola cinerea in thousands, with a few of a darker one 
( ? Nordmant), one of which I got. , . ,” 
