146 
SAVAGE SUDAN 
tree they encountered after crossing leagues of open 
veld. 
Up to that date Mr Butler had never had the luck, in 
a dozen years’ work in the Sudan, to secure a specimen of 
the swallow-tailed kite; hence it was no small pleasure to 
us to present a specimen to the Khartoum Museum. A 
few weeks later, however, Butler wrote us this charming 
word-picture:—“At last I have got myself two of those 
exquisite little kites. Fancy, there were six of them, all 
sitting alongside a young vulture in its nest! The kites 
kept returning again and again, and I got the two by 
waiting under the nest. Each time the kites pitched, the 
big grey vulture - squab 
lifted its head and chuckled 
welcome; and the little 
white kites twittered and 
mewed and folded their 
long wings and sat in a 
row all round the squab! 
The vulture’s nest {Otogyfts 
nubicus) was on top of a 
big thorn-tree, not in a 
crag.” This was in Kordofan. 
Another remarkable coincidence followed. We had 
picked up our six kites and were still searching around in 
case any more had fallen, when from the long grass at 
my feet arose a bird that at once struck me as something 
fresh. . . . Undoubtedly a lark of sorts, but extremely dark- 
coloured, with broadly rounded wings and pale rufous quills 
—probably a Mirafra ? Ere such thoughts had time to 
take shape in my mind the stranger fell dead, for Lowe is 
a man of instant action—shoot first, think after, is his 
plan. Examination satisfied us that we had secured a 
prize, and the anticipation subsequently proved correct, 
the bird being described as new to science under the title 
Mirafra sobatensis , Lynes. 
These dark bush-larks were invariably solitary, sitting 
