LAKE NO 
251 
In other individuals the chestnut feature was entirely 
omitted. This was a female, weight 3 lb.; males weigh 
4 lb. They are most quarrelsome creatures. 
The following year my hammerhead’s tree had gone- 
burnt in some grass-fire ; 1 but we secured quite a notable 
prize close by its site. It was February 23rd—a date 
ever associated in my mind with our triumph over 
elephants related in On Safari. This year it was to be 
with elephant-shrews! These little creatures have their 
headquarters among clumps of strong red reed-grass, 
Scissor-Bill.—“ Scissoring.” Openbill. 
spending their days in the sun-cracks deep beneath. 
Amidst this grass, in their run-ways, we trapped three, 
1 The Hammerhead is a shy, reclusive denizen of the swamp ; yet in 
the breeding-season (like rooks at home) sometimes seeks civilised society. 
Thus, during our voyage of 1919, we found one of their enormous nests— 
3 feet high by 3 feet broad across the top, though the bird itself is 
scarcely bigger than our British waterhen—in a tree in the Officers’ 
Compound at Malakal. The birds’ nearest neighbour, Captain B. D. Grew, 
Northumberland Fusiliers (who wore four wound-stripes), told me that 
the hammerheads had spent four months in the construction of this 
edifice—January to April, 1918. Both birds worked from dawn till 8 A.M., 
and again from 4 P.M. till dark—four or five hours daily. This year 
(1919) no eggs had been laid up to March 9th. A pair of hagedash ibises 
also nested in these gardens; while at Tewfikia, a few miles south, 
another pair of hammerheads were wont to nest in the compound till 
evicted by reason of the matutinal uproar they created! In all nests of 
the hammerhead the entrance faces due east. 
