266 
SAVAGE SUDAN 
from anything met with previously in our own shorter 
experience. 1 
It may well be observed that, under such conditions, 
even the tiniest warblers may present as great difficulty 
to secure as the more imposing trophies of big-game. 
Naturally, boundless bogs such as the Sudd are 
strongholds for those secretive tribes, the crakes and 
rails; but however often their weird voices may be 
audible, it is rare that these arch-skulkers show up in 
person. The first few secured proved to be merely the 
black water-rails, common all along White Nile; but 
one evening Lowe’s eye detected something far in under 
the fringe of overhung sedge — quite beyond normal 
vision — and a chance shot, promptly “plugged in,” 
realised a lovely creature, green above, rich purple below, 
with orange legs and armed as to its quills with a curious 
spiny process. This was Porfthyrio alleni , and next day 
another porphyrio-—larger and apparently all black—fell, 
but in impenetrable Sudd, whence two hours’ work failed to 
retrieve it; thus making the second of its genus similarly 
lost (see p. 226, note). Yet another member of this 
1 Captain Lynes writes me (1920) that the unknown warblers have 
been distinguished as follows :— 
Calamochicla leptorhyncha nuerensis (Lynes), the Lesser Sudd-warbler. 
Calamochicla ansorgei, the Greater Sudd-warbler. 
