SIX months' bird collecting in EGYPT. T45 



•X-28. Montagu's Harrier, Cvrus cincracms (Mont.). 



Captain Shelley mentions at p. 324 of his work, being 

 "very sceptical of Circus cincraceiis Xxz.Vxw^ ever been met 

 with in Egypt." It is satisfactory to have now set this 

 point at rest, for whatever difference of opinion there may 

 be about the young birds, there can be no mistake about 

 the adult male, and we shot two fine old cocks at Gebel 

 Silsilis on the 3rd of May. 



29. Egyptian Eagle- Owl, Bubo ascalaphus, Sav. ; 

 "Buma hamra bi urun." 



Although I visited Great Karnac by the pale moonlight, 

 and lay in ambush in the mountains behind the Meni- 

 nonium, I never got a sight of this fine Owl at Thebes ; but 

 about half way up the second Pyramid I was shown a well 

 white-washed eyrie. After a great deal of poking we 

 ejected the Owl, and he flew swiftly out and round to the 

 other side. I sent a man after him who flushed him again, 

 and he flew to the Great Pyramid, but I could not get him. 

 No doubt it was from one or other of the Pyramids that 

 two pairs of young birds which I saw at Cairo came. In 

 one pair there was a conspicuous difference in size, which I 

 have noticed to be the case in the young of the Barn Owl. 

 The same thing has been recorded of the Bittern and the 

 Yellow-billed Cuckoo (vide Audubon). It holds good also* 

 of Montagu's Harrier, the Kestrel, and other birds of prey. 

 One pair belonged to M. Marco, taxidermist and dragoman, 

 who also had an old one. He had been in the Soudan. 

 In Upper Egypt or Nubia he told me he had come across 

 an Owl larger and darker than Bubo ascalaphiis. Possibly 

 he referred to HuJma cinercus, of which there is a Nubian 

 example in the Museum at Norwich, though that is decidedly 

 not larger, but on the contrary smaller. It may however 



L 



