THE WESTERN BEND 
239 
Jabiru and hammerhead, godwits, stilts, greenshanks in 
two sizes, dunlins, ruffs and reeves, common, green, and 
wood-sandpipers, redshank and plovers of three species ; 
with pratincoles and Asiatic dotterels on the drier ground 
inland. Buff-backed herons fed on the backs of cattle, 
precisely as they do in Spain. Raised five snipes and 
shot two—also a 12-foot crocodile. 
Offshore, the waters were literally darkened with ducks. 
These masses were largely composed of the African white- 
“Spread out to Dry.”—Darter. Darter on Wing.—(N ote the “kink.”) 
faced tree-duck or “ whistling-teal ” (Dendrocygna viduata ), 1 
together with both our common teal and garganey. The 
essential difference in flight between the two contingents 
—shall I call them the Palaearctic and the Ethiopian?— 
was strikingly contrasted, as seen side by side. Our little 
European sprinters lifted from water light as summer- 
butterflies and sped like arrows through the air; whereas 
our dear little African friend splashes up heavily as a coot, 
with great ungainly feet hanging below, and his subsequent 
flight is flopping and laboured. The garganey, of course, 
1 These tree-ducks take at least two years, if not more, to acquire full 
adult plumage. In adults, the beak has a subterminal patch of blue, with 
a black nail. They never perch on trees. 
