BEYOND THE SUDD 
297 
allotted destination, say 500 miles away. At any rate, 
from that altitude they set their course and proceeded due 
N.N.E.—to Gedaref? (see Ibis, 1905, p. 378). Abdim’s 
stork, though common in winter in this region, I never 
once observed myself north of the Sudd; but in spring 
it proceeds northwards (as here indicated) to breed. 
The common white stork of Europe winters south of 
the Sudan—beyond the Equator; for few will ever be seen 
here before about mid-March. Thenceforward, as spring 
advances, great mobs of these 
storks, ever mindful of their 
“appointed season,” pass 
northward, often halting for 
a rest — (and a gorge on 
grasshoppers and locusts)—- 
on these Nilotic plains. But 
during his hibernal absence, 
the stork takes care to leave 
a locum tenens in this cousin¬ 
like form yclept Ciconia 
abdimii. 
By a backwater on the 
riverside that same afternoon 
(March 9th) probed a group of four waders. There was 
a greenshank, two marsh-sandpipers, and ... a spotted 
redshank, the latter being the first of this scarce species 
I had noticed in Sudan (and, incidentally, only the second 
in my life, the earlier instance having occurred only seven 
months before; to wit, on the Northumbrian coast on the 
29th of the preceding August). The spotted redshank 
is certainly the most graceful of all its graceful tribe. 
Owing to the extreme length of its legs, with a relatively 
short bill, its gait and poses when feeding are specifically 
distinguishable, being even more delicate than those of 
the “greyhound-like” greenshank. Here we had oppor¬ 
tunity of comparing three fine types in close juxtaposition, 
and Totanus fuscus is a type by itself. 
