KHARTOUM AND OMDURMAN 
303 
and despise our European calendars and all the rules 
that depend thereon. 1 
On the apex of our Erythrina sat a third fairy-form, 
completing a charming trio. This last was a tiny African 
dove, scarcely bigger than a wagtail and known to science 
as (Ena capensis. So gentle an epithalamium was he 
cooing that, although the heaving of his breast was 
distinctly perceptible, yet no sound reached one’s ear 
Long-tailed Doves ((Ena capensis ) on our Erythrina. 
beyond a few yards’ distance. Hard by, at an irrigation 
channel, two bigger doves (Tnrtur senegalensis and T. 
semitorquatus ), with hosts of golden sparrows, serins, and 
weaver-finches, were busy drinking; while amidst the sunlit 
foliage around flitted Nubian and masked shrikes, buntings 
1 Silverbills breed continuously throughout the winter, building their 
domed nests among the feathery foliage of the sessaban trees ( ParMnsonia\ 
a yellow-blossomed evergreen ; and it was pretty to watch their joint labour, 
as one of the pair worked outside the structure, the other within. In the 
same trees, golden weaver-finches were also constructing pendent nurseries; 
though their dates, we thought, fell a trifle later ; till, in March, a small 
snake was observed coiled up near one of their nests, and, on being shot, 
his gullet was found full of callow weavers ! 
