Crowned Cranes—F lighting. 
floatage. On examining the mud-charged waters (and 
also the crops of ducks shot), both will be found full of 
drift-grass and water-weed. The Nile itself, in short, is 
surcharged with floating vegetation and thus brings to 
the ducks their daily bread. Geese have yet another 
resource, for on the grassy islands their knife-edged 
mandibles can graze where a low growth is too short to 
be cropped by ducks. 
When one of these bigger islands, say a mile or two 
long, is seen to be fairly stocked with geese—all scattered 
about, feeding—then some exciting sport can be enjoyed 
VOYAGE UP WHITE NILE 45 
takes place. That is not surprising seeing that on both 
sides the Nile is flanked by barren desert. One is apt 
to wonder how such masses of wildfowl can find a daily 
subsistence at all; but the problem is solved by watching 
them attentively. There, for example, in midstream, 
swim a thousand pintail with two fathoms’ water beneath 
them. Though the sun is well up, the binoculars show 
that half the flotilla is “up-ended,” the rest tugging and 
guzzling. Clearly they are all a-feed on drift-weed and 
