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SAVAGE SUDAN 
are aware of the fact-—[a perplexing- epithet that! but 
it is quite all right and sounds scientific]. The eagle 
sits regardless, while the grivets, in full view, spreading- 
wide their forearms, squat flat in fantastic attitudes on 
the open sand to drink their fill. These attitudes may be 
impossible to portray ; and the annexed attempts to do so 
very unwise.There are, however, occasions when 
self-confidence is misplaced, and the thirsty grivet is 
snapped up by a crocodile. 
One night three elephants visited our home-pool 
and the spoor of giraffe approached but never quite 
Grivets Drinking—Dinder River. 
touched it; otherwise the larger animals were here 
confined to reedbuck, oribi, doubtfully duiker, gazelle, and 
wart-hog, 1 with hyenas and troops of baboons. Our 
activities were chiefly confined to birds and the minor 
mammals, of which latter we secured, inter alia , a 
Ratel, male, 26! lb., porcupine, jerbilles and jerboas— 
little cinnamon-hued sprites with big ears, immensely 
exaggerated hind-legs, and long tufted tails. One of 
these captured, Mr Oldfield Thomas has described as 
1 A wild boar of unascertained identity has long been reported from 
Sennar. We saw nothing of it; but many rootings of wild pigs noticed 
on the Dinder River were curiously square, as though cut with a spade. 
Rootings such as these I noticed nowhere else. 
