Among the feathered tribe there are birds of the most beautiful plumage in this province, and many European varieties, even those of Germany, hibernate here. The grey water-wagtail may more especially be met with in myriads. The desert, the woods, even the huts in the villages, are filled with these beautiful creatures, which delight the eye with their magnificent colours, and the ear with their charming song. It is, indeed, impossible to form a conception of the spectacle they afford without having seen it. New species arrive with every month, whilst others migrate until the proper season recalls them. Eagles, vultures, parrots, colibris, a variety of aquatic birds, ostriches, black storks, and the ibis, considered holy by the ancient Egyptians, are to be here met with; the latter two varieties are the chief birds of Kordofan. A large aquatic bird saved me a great deal of trouble in collecting shells in the marshes. If I descried one of these birds in the vicinity of a pond, I had only to retreat to a distance of about fifty paces from it, and to watch its movements. It dived beneath the water, and always brought up one of the conchylia in its beak, which resembles that of the woodpecker, and laid it on the sand at a distance of a few paces from the water. Its prize consisted of a larger or smaller number of these shells according to their size. It generally collected about twelve on one spot, but as these conchylia are bivalvular, and the one shell is so firmly connected with the other that they can only be opened with a knife, it had to wait until the rays of the sun performed the office for it. He continually walked round the spot where he had deposed his prey, and kept his eye upon it. As soon, however, as one of these mollusca opened its shell he instantly inserted his beak, to prevent it from closing it again, and tore it asunder with his claw. I never disturbed him in his work, for he saved me the trouble of destroying the animal and clearing the shell, which, as I knew by experience, he seldom entirely separates.