white spotted kingfisher, if less beautiful, is much more energetic, and darts about the bank incessantly, coquetting with the boat from reach to reach, and seldom allowing an inspection close enough to take in the details of his piebald coat. One interests oneself in these things more particularly because there is nothing at first especially striking about the river scenery itself. Ten or twenty feet of bank cuts off the view on either side, and large and varied features are wanting. The banks are lined with the densest jungle of mangroves and aquatic grasses, while creepers of a hundred kinds struggle for life among the interlacing stems. We saw crocodiles here in such numbers that count was very soon lost. They were of all sizes, from the baby specimen which one might take home in a bottle to the enormous bullet-proof brute the size of an 81-ton gun. These revolting animals take their siesta in the heat of the day, lying prone upon the bank, with their wedge-shaped heads directed towards the water. When disturbed they scuttle into the river with a wriggling movement, the precipitancy of which defies the power of sight. The adjustment of the adult crocodile to its environment in the matter of color is quite remarkable. The younger forms are lighter yellow, and more easily discoverable, but it takes the careful use of a good pair of eyes to distinguish in the gnarled slime-covered log lying among the rotting stumps the living form of the mature specimen. Between the African crocodiles and the alligators there is the slightest possible external difference; although the longer head, the arrangement of scales, the fringed feet with their webbed toes, the uniform teeth, and the protrusion of the large canine, distinguish them from their American allies. Many of the ibises I shot as we moved along, for food for the men, who, like all Africans, will do anything for flesh in whatever form. For ourselves, we lived upon emaciated fowls and tinned meats, cooking them at a fire on the bank when the boat stopped. Eggs are never eaten by the natives, but always set; although, if you offer to buy them, the natives will bring you a dozen from a sitting hen, which they assure you were laid that very morning. In the interior, on many occasions afterwards, these protestations were tested, and always proved false. One time, when nearly famished and far from camp, I was brought a few eggs which a chief himself guaranteed had that very hour been laid. With sincere hope that he might be right, but with much misgiving, I ordered the two freshest looking to be boiled. With the despair of a starving man I opened them. They were cock and hen.