254 
SAVAGE SUDAN 
March ist, the other a week earlier near Renk. Here¬ 
abouts the masses of whistling-teal and other water-fowl 
that darken the sand-banks are oft interspersed with solid 
patches in black and white, punctuated by flashes of 
crimson, that recall the colours of oyster-catchers at 
home. These patches are all scissorbills, which lie 
flat asleep all day. Towards dusk they awake to sudden 
activity, skimming the still surface in every direction, and 
each bird leaving behind it a clear-cut “wake” where the 
“A Certain Liveliness.” 
Serpent-Eagle attacking a Mamba near Lake No, February 2nd, 1914. 
curiously lengthened lower mandible rips through the 
water. By day, their vacated place was occupied by birds 
of diurnal type — by hordes of chattering bee-eaters, 
swallows, palm-swifts, martins, and sand-martins, hawking 
over the river—the last trio conspicuously smaller than 
European forms; and mixed with these were small terns 
(whiskered, white-winged, and black), with a few of the 
larger Caspian and gull-billed terns. 
Such was the tropical heat at Lake No, and such 
(notwithstanding) the terrific energy of my collaborators, 
who disregard alike the power of the sun and the terror of 
