ERKOWIT 
381 
Alongside these ravens soared kites; but kites 
conspicuously different from our customary camp- 
scavenger. All kites have white heads, but in these a 
bold dark blotch covered the auriculars—recalling the 
head of a marsh-harrier. A broad band, lighter than 
usual, also extended across the underwings, and their 
tails were rather more deeply forked than these of the 
everyday kite. I remember seeing a kite on Blue Nile 
that I mentally noted as Milvus regalis ; now, I conclude, 
it was merely a wanderer of this Erkowit type. 
Erkowit Kite perched on Head of Isabelline Gazelle. 
In retrospect, Erkowit leaves the impression of a 
place apart—half outside our world of to-day, in some 
sense a survival of long departed ages. Much of its 
fauna and especially of its flora appear prehistoric, 
antediluvian — witness those wraith-like ravens, the 
monstrously coiffured baboons, the dracaena and caraib, 
and the lammergeyer—to me ever reminiscent of the 
Pleistocene with its flying-dragons. Worthily to treat 
such subjects lies beyond my power; yet visions of 
gorgeous butterflies flit through the mental retrospect; of 
strange insects and yet stranger reptiles and beasties; 
there were jumping jerbils, and jerboas with exaggerated 
femurs and bushy hare-like feet; hares which appeared 
all ears; spiny mice, and unknown bats which yielded 
