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SAVAGE SUDAN 
and carry off precious bird-specimens right under the 
collector’s eye, but perches on withy-fences tearing at 
the strips of hippo-flesh hung thereon to dry by native 
hunters. This coucal, moreover, with its powerful beak, 
smashes to fragments the strong shells of the big land- 
snails so common along White Nile. These it carries 
to some mound or stump convenient to serve as an 
Instinct at Fault—“Kite Over” (Bush-Cuckoo). 
anvil—among the cane-brakes such mounds are often 
completely encircled by a ring of broken snail-shells . 1 
A charming little bird, specially characteristic of this 
region, I had well-nigh forgotten. It was the sweltering 
noontide hour, and, while busy writing up notes on the 
poop, a low sweet song in minor key caught my ear. Six 
1 In the crop of a coucal of the white-browed species [Centropus super- 
ciliosus ) shot on the Dinder River, Lynes found the remains of a mouse— 
the femur measuring ij inches—while the stomach contained fragments 
and feathers of a finch. Clearly this is a bird of prey. Among the cuckoo- 
tribe, by the way, such an organ as a crop is normally omitted ! 
