xtremely graceful and elegant--looking bird--and a
light blue crane, and another crane with light blue and white neck. We
must have counted fifty or more specimens of the _Ibis religiosa_, and
vast flocks of the large white pelican, which came following each other
in a long-extended line, rising and falling as they flew. David cried
out that they looked as if they were all fastened together like a thick
rope made to move like a serpent. There were also innumerable plovers,
snipes, curlews, herons, and other smaller birds. A number of those
strange birds, the scissor-bills, were flying about near a sandbank on
one side. They had snow-white breasts, black coats, and red beaks. We
observed the hollows in which their nests were placed in the sandbanks,
for they made no attempt to conceal them. "What brave little chaps they
are!" exclaimed Leo. "See!" Some crows had approached as he spoke,
when the scissor-bills flew after them and drove them off. As we drew
near, however, the crows took to flight, when the little scissor-bills
hung down one of their wings, and limped off, pretending to be lame.
This trick did not, however, save the life of one of them, at which
David fired for the sake of examining it. On getting the bird into the
canoe, we found the lower mandible almost as thin as a carving-knife.
The bird places it on the surface of the water as it skims along, and
scoops up any minute insects which it meets with in its course. Its
wings being very long, and kept above the level of its body, it can
continue thus flying on for a considerable time, till it has supplied
itself with an ample meal.

"By feeding at night, it probably escapes being snapped up by some
hungry crocodile, which it would be if it fed thus close to the water in
the day-time," observed David. "The scissor-bill has great affection
for its young, as indeed have most water-birds."

On another bank we saw a number of pretty little bee-eaters congregated
together. The bank was perforated with hundreds of holes conducting to
their nests. As we passed by they flew out in clouds, darting about our
heads. Then there were speckled kingfishers, and also beautiful little
blue and orange kingfishers, which we saw dash down like shots into the
water searching for their prey. There were sand-martins something like
those seen in England; and from the trees also, as we passed under the
banks, rose flocks of green pigeons. I must, however, bring my ac