392 
SAVAGE SUDAN 
while the through-transit of Europe-bound migrants was a 
daily and striking phenomenon during March and April. One 
amusing incident may be related. A rather striking little 
warbler had outmanoeuvred the ornithological acumen of our 
triumvirate; it agreed with nothing in our knowledge. On 
reaching Khartoum, we submitted the puzzling prize (?) to 
Mr Butler. He let us down gently, merely inquiring :—“ Is 
that not a female of the British blackcap ? ” That is exactly 
what it was ; but, none of us three having before seen a blackcap 
in winter , that familiar little songster gave us a bad throw. 
Sandgrouse here (as elsewhere in Sudan) are wont to pass 
over high each morning on their way to water. One evening 
our landlord informed us he had that day shot “ eighty pieces 
of sandgrouse.” Such a bag clearly indicated smart shooting, 
but illusion vanished when he expressed 
disappointment that his best single shot had 
only realised eleven pieces, against fourteen 
on a previous occasion! 
In these tropical seas exist fish other than 
predatory monsters and a thousand-fold more 
beautiful. Peer over the rim of any coral- 
Foot of Tropic-Bird. f r j n g e( ] cree k and what a scene in fairyland 
the crystal depths reveal—Nature run riot in a blaze of flashing 
prismatic radiance. Each pool teems with creatures that 
glance and gleam in iridescence and as instantly vanish like 
shattered fragments of a rainbow. No written words serve to 
convey an idea of such colour-effects—one unit alone is plainly 
clad—in vertical black and white stripes, arranged zebra- 
fashion : the rest defy description. 
Flamingo Bay is an inlet sequestered among the coral 
reefs (which here extend 16 miles out to sea) and lies north 
of Port Sudan. On east and north the coral is overlaid with 
sand, forming desert dunes, half-clad with a lowly salt-scrub, 
and enclosing lateral lagoons in some of which mangrove-bush 
(like a rhododendron) grows in salt water. Our Arab crew 
had kept assuring us we should find these inner lagoons alive 
with birds. The flamingos were there right enough—a dozen 
or two; and these, with a few Goliath and reef-herons, spoon¬ 
bills, and waders proved to be the chief items in a bird-life by 
