428 
SAVAGE SUDAN 
First let us take wildfowl. For a full half-century I have 
followed the wildfowler’s craft, afloat and ashore, and with 
equal enthusiasm as gunner and naturalist alike. Hence it is 
physically improbable that many men now living can speak 
from a longer experience. 
The outstanding character in winter wildfowl would seem 
to need no new description ; yet some measure of re-description 
is necessitated when we have to combat fallacies such as this. 
Briefly put:—Wildfowl, as a rule, are creatures of large size; 
they comprise, in fact, some of the largest flying-forms extant. 
Secondly, they include groups of every conceivable colour, many 
of them strikingly conspicuous afar ; such, for example, as the 
wild swans and geese, pelicans, flamingos, shelducks. Thirdly, 
wildfowl are highly gregarious, accustomed to assemble in 
masses that are commonly computable by the hundred, more 
often by the thousand units. Fourthly, the selected homes of 
these masses are invariably upon open waters, on shallow fore¬ 
shore, or tidal estuary—-all three situations as flat as a floor 
and totally devoid of a scrap of covert or concealment. Fifthly 
(and incidentally), most wildfowl are of such clamorous dis¬ 
position that for a mile around, their raucous cries proclaim 
both their presence and their precise position. 
Now, unless this quintuple combination of characters be 
disputed or denied, it is obviously incompatible with any 
conceivable creed such as that above quoted. Even were it 
possible to accept a proposition that large and conspicuous 
objects—assembled in solid masses—on open spaces where 
they literally challenge attention—and where no means of 
concealment exist (even were it sought, which is never the 
case)—-are nevertheless invisible to the scientific eye (through 
concealing colours or otherwise), we should yet have to 
swallow the further inference that their united clamour was 
equally inaudible to scientific ear. 
As regards colour alone, here are a couple of extracts from 
my wildfowling diary :—“ February 25th, 1918. This morning 
at 8 A.M. two thousand brent-geese sat ‘ parliamenting ’ on the 
slob a mile to the westward. In the low rays of the rising sun 
they showed up white as seagulls. At 4.30 P.M., with the sun 
straight behind them, these same geese appeared black as 
coals. . . . Towards noon sighted two wild swans to the south- 
