528 
African Game Trails 
like our black-headed gull, but with their 
hoods gray, flew screaming around us. 
Black and white kingfishers, tiny red¬ 
billed kingfishers, with colors so brilliant 
that they flashed like jewels in the sun, and 
brilliant green bee-eaters with chestnut 
breasts perched among the reeds. Spur¬ 
winged plover clamored as they circled over¬ 
head near the edges of the water. Little 
rails and red-legged water hens threaded 
the edges of the papyrus, and grebes dived 
in the open water. A giant heron, the 
its edge; toward evening they splashed and 
waded among the water-lilies, tearing them 
up with their huge jaws; and during the 
night they came ashore to feed on the grass 
and land plants. In consequence those 
killed during the day, until the late after¬ 
noon, had their stomachs filled, not with 
water plants, but with grasses which they 
must have obtained in their night journeys 
on dry land. At night I heard the bulls 
bellowing and roaring. They fight savagely 
among themselves, and where they are not 
Goliath, flew up at our approach; and 
there were many smaller herons and egrets, 
white or particolored. There were small, 
dark cormorants, and larger ones with 
white throats; and African ruddy ducks, 
and teal and big yellow-billed ducks, some¬ 
what like mallards. Among the many 
kinds of ducks was one which made a 
whistling noise with its wings as it flew. 
Most plentiful of all were the coots, much 
resembling our common bald-pate coot, but 
with a pair of horns or papillae at the hinder 
end of the bare frontal space. 
There were a number of hippo in these 
lagoons. One afternoon after four o’clock 
I saw two standing half out of water in 
a shallow, eating the water-lilies. They 
seemed to spend the fore part of the day 
sleeping or resting in the papyrus or near 
molested, and the natives are timid, they 
not only do great damage to the gardens 
and crops, trampling them down and shov¬ 
elling basketfuls into their huge mouths, 
but also become dangerous to human be¬ 
ings, attacking boats or canoes in a spirit 
of wanton and ferocious mischief. At this 
place, a few weeks before our arrival, a 
young bull, badly scarred, and evidently 
having been mishandled by some bigger 
bull, came ashore in the daytime and act¬ 
ually attacked the cattle, and was promptly 
shot in consequence. They are astonish¬ 
ingly quick in their movements for such 
shapeless-looking, short-legged things. Of 
course they cannot swim in deep water with 
anything like the speed of the real swim¬ 
ming mammals, nor move on shore with the 
agility and speed of the true denizens of 
