Page:Papers presented to the Worlds Congress on Ornithology.djvu/199

 ing. This marsh, about 900 yards in diameter, with a deep rocky cavern in its centre, is worthy of the admiration of mankind; it is a place offering any amount of important observations upon bird-life to every lover of natural science, but it is especially attractive to an ornithologist who wishes to learn and to study, and who does not come to destroy birds and thus make his visit a mercenary matter.

The marsh is inhabited by numerous birds. Many species of singers and Finches, many more of wading and swimming birds, nest among the tall reeds, making this only marshy thicket in the vast plain their home for the whole year through; but there are others, like the European Swallow, different kinds of Herons, Storks, Cranes, and other Grallæ, Plectropterus gambensis and the Egyptian Goose (Chenalopex ægyptiacus), which pour in toward the night only, selecting this lonely spot to be their dormitory for the few hours up to the dawning day.

I consider the few days which I spent on the banks of this pool as some of the happiest ones which I experienced during my first African exploring trip of seven years’ duration; but one thing which I do deplore is that, having no boat, I was not able to explore the centre of the dark waters and those many small islands, formed of floating rushes and broken-down reeds, which are the real nesting-places of numerous pairs of Fulicula, and several species of Anas, Dendrocygna and Querquedula.

It is just an hour before sunset. In the reeds below, the great noise produced by so many feathered inhabitants keeps on, as during the whole day. Conspicuous more than others are the hundreds of pairs of bright red Finches (Pyromelana sundevalli) watching their nests, and having used two or three close reeds as pillars for each of them; different species of yellow-tinted Weavers (Ploceus and Hyphantornis) are the next ones audible with their voices; in which chorus a few troops of the beautiful Kafir Finches, the nicest South