342 THE EXPLORATION OF THE NIGER heavy heads on one side, with the air of old men considering some new invention, or savants discussing abstract verities.

Our pair of storks, in spite of their calm and sedate appearance, must really have been only just beginning their joint mSnage and can have had no real experience of life.

IZ..aBi " I A NAllM. \\(.)MAN WITH GOI IKL.

They evidently knew how to fish by instinct ; but a sad catastrophe befell their home, which they had built on a big dead branch, for in a specially violent tornado the bough was torn off, nest and all, and flung upon the quick-firing gun pointing up-stream, knocking over Ibrahim Bubakar, who was on sentry duty, but who fortunately escaped with a fright and a few bruises on the legs. Alas ! however, three