48 
SAVAGE SUDAN 
on wing or water—his flight laboured and lumbering, with 
neck stuck out rigidly straight and an ugly excrescence 
on the beak. Even the Egyptian goose, despite a 
handsome coloration, lacks smartness in carriage and all 
pride of race. His plumage is loose and dowdy; his 
flopping flight, almost cormorant-like, harsh corvine croak, 
and drooping stern anything but anserine. Whole troops 
of all these three lie unkempt and ragged, slumbering 
the hours away, and never a sentry to be seen. By 
comparison, in fifty years’ wildfowling at home, never 
once have I detected a brent-goose asleep, or wild-geese 
of any kind unprotected by sentinels. 
Should the theory of the Polar origin of life be accept¬ 
able, it would appear, in this case, that those forms which 
have selected the Equator as a residence have deteriorated 
most. Perhaps the deduction may have a wider bearing 
than upon wild-geese alone. 
The ruddy sheldrakes, constant companions of the 
geese, closely resemble them both in character and habit. 
Squatting flat on the russet sand, these goose-like ducks 
assimilate in marvellous degree with their environment. 
They are, of course, detected at once by an eye that is 
looking for them and knows what to look for; still it is 
a startling transformation-scene when they rise on wing, 
and objects hitherto of a dead monotone suddenly resolve 
into splashes of the boldest contrasted colours. In rest , 
the ruddy sheldrake conceals these striking features; 
hence nearly all illustrations (and equally mounted 
specimens) convey a wrong impression of the bird in 
life. It is, of course, manifestly indecorous (and incon¬ 
siderate to artists) that birds should thus conceal their 
beauty-spots from view—as a lady might hide some 
exquisite Parisian “creation” beneath a worsted dressing- 
gown—but when it is Nature’s way, we should be 
constrained faithfully to follow. 
In mid-winter, these Nile geese—as would naturally 
be expected-—proved wild in the extreme, almost inacces- 
