THE RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO 435 
tempered, and rather daunted the spurwings by the way 
they opened their enormous beaks at them. The fish eagles 
fed exclusively on fish, as far as we could tell, and there were 
piles of fish bones and heads under their favorite perches. 
Once I saw one plunge into the water, but it failed to 
catch anything. Another time, suddenly, and seemingly 
in mere mischief, one attacked a purple heron which was 
standing on a mud bank. The eagle swooped down from a 
tree and knocked over the heron; and when the astonished 
heron struggled to its feet and attempted to fly off, the eagle 
made another swoop and this time knocked it into the water. 
The heron then edged into the papyrus, and the eagle paid 
it no further attention. 
In this camp we had to watch the white ants, which strove 
to devour everything. They are nocturnal, and work in 
the daytime only under the tunnels of earth which they 
build over the surface of the box, or whatever else it is, 
that they are devouring; they eat out everything, leaving 
this outside shell of earth. We also saw a long column of 
the dreaded driver ants. These are carnivorous; I have seen 
both red and black species; they kill every living thing in 
their path, and I have known them at night drive all the 
men in a camp out into the jungle to fight the mosquitoes 
unprotected until daylight. On another occasion, where a 
steamboat was moored close to a bank, an ant column 
entered the boat after nightfall, and kept complete posses¬ 
sion of it for forty-eight hours. Fires, and boiling water, 
offer the only effectual means of resistance. The bees are 
at times as formidable; when their nests are disturbed they 
will attack every one in sight, driving all the crew of a boat 
overboard or scattering a safari, and not infrequently kill- 
