SIX months' bird collecting in EGYPT. II3 



It is in April that the great tide of birds press northwards, 

 and ours, which happened to be by many Aveeks the last 

 Diabeyha up the river, just hit off the feathered pilgrims, 

 as I had calculated it would do. A mighty army they 

 were, bound many of them for the Delta, many of them for 

 the more northern shores of Europe. By the 29th the main 

 troop had passed : the rush was over. The Tree Pipit and 

 the Golden Oriole, the last of the migrants, had arrived. 

 When these stragglers had passed we saw no more birds, ex- 

 cept the residents and a few Turtle Doves, Rufous Warblers, 

 etc., which had found their journey's end sooner than the 

 main body, and were already commencing the duties of 

 incubation, not to migrate any more until the returning 

 wave in autumn should impel them south again. 



I am not one of those who think that migration in Egypt 

 is very dependent on the overflow of the Nile. I know 

 that the early writers attributed it to that, but they seem to 

 have ignored the fact that the vernal and autumnal move- 

 ments take place just as much in any other country, though 

 I can well believe that it is nowhere more observable or 

 more patent to everybody's eye. I am of course aware that 

 the Nile at Christmas offers a splendid resort to all water- 

 birds, and countless throngs avail themselves of it, but 

 these very birds show that they are not wholly governed 

 by the subsidence of the waters by not quitting before 

 March, a period when the river is comparatively low, and 



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