2 78 
ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA chap, xii 
another halt to let the men drink, we were able, by keeping at 
it later, to do about our accustomed distance. 
While waiting for the men to drink, I was interested in 
watching, through my glasses, a party of spoonbills feeding in 
the shallows. They reminded me forcibly of mowers moving 
slowly in a row, some fifteen or twenty abreast, in open order 
with measured steps, their heads down and the points of their 
long bills under water swinging regularly with a sweeping 
action from right to left. This was evidently their method of 
feeling for food on the muddy bottom. Some white herons 
and egrets of various sizes accompanied the spoonbills. There 
was also a clump of stately pelicans on a low island near, and 
beyond a large flock of gulls resting on a mud-bank, besides 
the usual assortment of storks, herons, etc., etc. I wished I 
could get near enough to photograph the scene, but all my 
attempts to take snap-shots at the lake birds have resulted in 
failure. 
We found a nice spot for our camp again to-day, with 
shady thorn-trees, near two more fishermen’s villages on low 
islands. There was also a high island opposite, far out, not 
marked on the map I had with me. The lake here is ugly 
but still interesting—as how could it fail to be with its 
abounding bird life ? Game too was plentiful, and a hare 
would now and then get up under one’s feet and scuttle away 
(an animal which, though I have not mentioned it before, is 
occasionally met with all along the lake). There are also 
great numbers of small black crows all along here. They may 
be seen among the huts on the little islands occupied by the 
El Molo, picking up the fish refuse ; in this way no doubt 
useful to the islanders, who do not molest them. Hence they 
become very tame and sometimes a nuisance; there were 
flocks always about our camp, and they would venture right in 
among us and were constantly trying to steal the strips of 
meat spread about to dry. 
Once more we had, on the 22nd, a series of stony volcanic 
