398 
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 
which ran lightly over the lily pads. There were cormo¬ 
rants and snake birds. Fish eagles screamed as they circled 
around; very handsome birds, the head, neck, tail, breast, 
and forepart of the back white, the rest of the plumage black 
and rich chestnut. There was a queer little eagle owl with 
inflamed red eyelids. The black and red bulbuls sang noisily. 
There were many kingfishers, some no larger than chippy 
sparrows, and many of them brilliantly colored; some had, 
and others had not, the regular kingfisher voice; and while 
some dwelt by the river bank and caught fish, others did not 
come near the water and lived on insects. There were par¬ 
adise flycatchers with long, wavy white tails; and olive-green 
pigeons with yellow bellies. Red-headed, red-tailed lizards 
ran swiftly up and down the trees. The most extraordinary 
birds were the nightjars; the cocks carried in each wing one 
very long, waving plume, the pliable quill being twice the 
length of the bird’s body and tail, and bare except for a patch 
of dark feather webbing at the end. The two big, dark 
plume tips were very conspicuous, trailing behind the bird 
as it flew, and so riveting the observer’s attention as to make 
the bird itself almost escape notice. When seen flying, the 
first impression conveyed was of two large, dark moths or 
butterflies fluttering rapidly through the air; it was with a 
positive effort of the eye that I fixed the actual bird. The 
big slate and yellow bats were more interesting still. There 
were several kinds of bats at this camp; a small dark kind 
that appeared only when night had fallen and flew very near 
the ground all night long, and a somewhat larger one, lighter 
beneath, which appeared late in the evening and flew higher 
in the air. Both of these had the ordinary bat habits of 
continuous, swaliow-like flight. But the habits of the 
