XXVIII 
BEAKS 
349 
with soft lower tail coverts, worn by fashionable ladies 
as marabou feathers. It is odd that this, the ugliest 
of birds, should furnish such exquisite feathers. The 
curious pouch is filled with air, and opens into the 
nasal passage on the left side below the orbit ; the bird 
can inflate it at will. The marabou-stork is an efficient 
scavenger and may be seen sailing high in the air, and 
descends when it descries carrion. This bird is feared 
by the vultures when it drops among them whilst they 
are gorging on a carcase. His long and powerful bill 
earns for him so much respect among carrion eaters 
that he has been termed by the natives, and not inaptly, 
“the master of the feast.” 
The marabou eats fishes, also termites when they 
swarm. I am not likely to forget the pleasure with 
which I watched at daybreak an enormous congregation 
of birds around a pool in the middle of a swamp, an 
acre in extent, near Tewfikia (White Nile). There were 
thirty marabous. The specific name of these birds, 
crumenifer, signifies the bearer of a purse or money 
bag; they are caricature-likenesses of bald-headed 
vergers. Among the birds were twenty-three sacred 
ibises, looking like acolytes, a flock of white herons 
which arose like a cloud when 1 approached too near; 
seven tufted umbres, many plovers, and numerous 
wading birds. One of the party shot a marabou, and I 
found in the crop seven fishes the size of large sprats. 
The buzzards soon came around for the spoil. 
The bills of herons and cormorants are admirable 
forceps for securing fishes; the darter is furnished with 
an excellent spear for transfixing such slippery food, 
and the pelican possesses an excellent scoop with which 
to catch them wholesale. There is another bird which 
frequents the Central African lakes and the White Nile, 
known as the skimmer or scissor-bill, with the most 
extraordinary beak ever designed for fishing. The bill 
and the bird are so peculiar that they attract attention 
from the least observant. The bill is flattened in the 
