38 
ON SAFARI 
special character that arrested attention was the immense 
size of many species. There were colossal cranes, storks 
and herons, perfect giants of the bird-world. There 
were pelicans in droves ; these, of course, are always big. 
Geese, ducks and flamingoes in thousands filled air and 
water. Darters (. Plotus ) with snake-like necks and small 
cormorants perched on half-submerged trees. There 
were herons and egrets in their many varieties ; ibises 
of both kinds, with plovers and sandpipers, gulls great 
and small, grebes, and many more. Though I have 
been an ornithologist all my life, I hardly dare further 
attempt to describe or define those exotic multitudes. 
The assemblage, however, certainly included the Goliath 
heron, tall and grey, standing bolt upright as a Guards¬ 
man ; another conspicuous monster being the huge 
jabiru or saddle-bill, with its heavy, up-til ted, murderous 
beak, red, with a broad black band in centre, both of 
which birds I have endeavoured to portray. Besides 
these, there are entered in my notebook—though with 
due doubtfulness, both on this and other occasions around 
Nakuru’s shore—the whale-billed stork (Baloenicejps) 
and the great wattled crane (Grus carunculata), a 
species I had met with in South Africa; but neither 
bird has yet been proved to occur here in Equatoria, 
Two flamingoes that I killed with the rifle were of 
the European species (Phoenicojpterus roseus ), but we 
saw others that were red all over (. Ph . minor). 
Many hippo lay in the shallows off-shore; one, an 
immense bull with pink cheeks and neck, showed 
splendid curved ivory as he opened a cavernous mouth 
to yawn. He offered a good target, and W-put in 
a bullet that told well. The hippo disappeared, and we 
saw him no more, though we waited all day (watching 
the birds also) and sent down “ boys ” next morning. 
Neither of us fired at hippo again. 
That evening we marched into Nakuru and encamped 
alongside the railway. There is a Dak bungalow at the 
station, and, without being Sybarites, we enjoyed an 
excellent dinner and a bottle of Pontet Canet—a grateful 
change from the rough fare of the veld. 
