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SAVAGE SUDAN 
nor more brilliant of hue than our own feathered friends 
at home. The idea is a pretty little popular illusion. 
Like most illusions it has some slight basis of fact. 
Certainly a tourist steaming along the Upper Nile, under 
the forests of the erstwhile Lado Enclave, might be 
forgiven an outburst of rapture. For at frequent 
intervals he passes by huge trees literally encarmined 
Grey Hornbill. 
Dhurra-Finch 
(Pyromelana franciscana ) 
in Summer Dress. 
by thousands of the most brilliant birds in Nature. 
These are Nubian bee-eaters, and no preserved speci¬ 
men can convey even a faint appreciation of their 
full glory in life. Not only their selected trees but the 
whole ambient air flashes with these gorgeous creatures, 
chattering and wheeling, poising and darting in headlong 
sweeps, their scarlet and emerald-green lustre gleaming 
like thousands of gems in the fierce African sunlight. 
Often the assemblage includes three other species of 
bee-eaters, each vying with the other in an amazing 
rivalry of bright hues; while as joint-tenants they may 
