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Show 1900.] FAUNA OF THE WHITE NILE. 963 P S E U D O T A N T A L U S IBIS (L.). The African Tantalus was noted on 17 days out of the 47: on the White Nile from near Omdurman southwards, on the Jebel, Ghazal, and Arab rivers, and on Lake Ambadi. Like the Maribous, these birds are but little frightened of m en and their ways ; I have seen them not fly away till the steamer was within about twenty yards of them. They are very handsome birds, with, as a rule, such beautifully clean-looking white plumage and cheerful ruddy faces. They often congregate in flocks ; the largest number of individuals I have counted in a flock was forty-three. Family BAL.ENICIPITIDAE. BALTENICEPS REX Gould. The Shoebill or Whaleheaded Stork is termed in Arabic " Abu Markiib," i.e. father of a slipper. On the 28th March we first came on this species, a solitary specimen, in a marsh near Lake N o ; on the 29th while steaming up the Bahr-el-Ghazal we saw three or four; on the 30th a few more on Lake Ambadi, one was shot and the skin preserved ; on the 31st we saw many, as the following extract from m y diary shows :-" Whaleheaded Stork : saw perhaps forty or fifty in the course of the day; we tried hard to shoot another specimen with our rifles, but nobody managed to hit one; it is very curious that while all the other birds here (never having been shot at) are comparatively tame and easy to approach within fifty yards or less, the Balceniceps is very shy, usually flying off at about three hundred yards or even further, and it was very seldom we got a shot at them under two hundred yards, which from a moving steamer is not easy. They were to be seen usually singly, sometimes two or three within a score of yards of each other, standing about on the edges of the marsh, always in the same attitude; in the motionless way in which they stand, their solitariness, and their flight, they are more like a heron than a stork ; in fact, at a distance, unless you can see the bill, it is impossible to tell them, when on the wing, from the Goliath Heron. They were most numerous by Lake Ambadi, but occurred at intervals all along the Bahr-el-Ghazal." O n the 3rd of April we saw two near the mouth of the Bahr-el- Jebel, on the 5th one near Heliat Nuer; on the 7th we saw seven during the afternoon, either singly or in pairs, as usual seen standing motionless in the swamp, and very shy ; and on the 8th we saw one within about thirty miles north of Shambe. Notes on specimen shot, Lake Ambadi, 30th March:- Iris very pale yellow. Eyelids and skin between bill and eye blue-grey like the feathers of the head, but the lower eyelid has a patch of small white feathers on it. Bill horn-colour, upper mandible being greyish towards base. Legs, feet, and claws black. P R O C ZOOL. Soc-1900, No. LXIII. 63 |
