THE FORESTS OF KORDOFAN 
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headed herons, a brace of francolins and a mongoose— 
(a hedgehog, picked up in mummified state, not counted). 
The mongoose I shot last thing at dusk. It reared itself 
up in the long grass to see what was passing—-a thick-set, 
rabbit-sized little beastie with bloodshot eyes, altogether 
ruddier and less slim than those we have shot in Spain, 
besides being banded, zebra-fashion, with black. Along¬ 
side it, half-eaten, lay one of those luridly coloured lizards 
in cobalt and orange (. Agama colonorum) that frequent 
these regions. My men, I 
was told, ate the mongoose 
-—(Crossarchus zebra). 
(2) Candace, January 
26th , 1914, about 10-15° 
North latitude (south of 
Melut—- similar country , 
but forest more open). 
Amidst one of the usual 
mobs of exotic water-fowl 
assembled alongshore, I 
detected a bird new to me 
and unobserved during previous voyages. This was a 
Bishop-stork ( Episcopus ), recognisable by its downy white 
nape and the loose fluffy feathers that adorn its breast. 
Ere we could land the stranger had disappeared, but amidst 
the crowd that remained were two great white egrets 
(Herodias alba), already at this early date in that full 
nuptial plumage that has proved so fatal to their race . 1 
Should I be honoured by a lady reader, she will better 
recognise the bird under the milliners’ title of “osprey.” 
Both these exquisite creatures I secured, the same shot 
killing by accident a greenshank and two spurwing plovers. 
Half a mile further on, by a stagnant water-course, I 
1 This early assumption of the nuptial plumes is exceptional. We 
observed great white egrets much later than this without a sign of these 
adornments—in 1919 as late as March 9th. 
Bishop-Stork. 
