SIX months' bird collecting in EGYPT. 1 8/ 



ciutJi'uius, Temm., is really found in Egypt. I have no 

 doubt as to what my birds are, but they are not quite so 

 green as three which I have alive. 



Mr. Burton, the taxidermist in Soho, showed me a speci- 

 men which was obtained in Egypt some years ago by 

 Mr. Baird. 



I must devote a word or two to my tame ones. I have 

 had them some years now, and they could not look better 

 than they do. They are out of doors all the twelve months, 

 but in the winter their cage is covered up at night with 

 matting. I attribute their good health to its being a 

 movable cage, which enables us to give them fresh ground 

 as often as we like. If given fish, they only eat the head. 

 They like a little grass, but their staple diet is sopped bread. 

 For a long time they were dumb, but now not a day passes 

 but they give utterance to the shrill note which carries me 

 back to the swamps of Egypt. 



134B. Coot, FuUca atra, Linn. (Hasselquist, 34). 



I never saw any Coots on the river or at Birket-El- 

 Kairoun, but at Lake Menzaleh I saw such multitudes as I 

 should not have believed possible. See page 93 for an 

 account of the method of taking them with a casting net.* 



135. Solitary Snipe, Gallinago major (Gmel.). 



One at M. Filliponi's killed at Damietta. I have a very 

 good female obtained on the 9th of May, 1863, by Mr. Allen 

 at Damietta ; but it is not a common bird. 



** Very few authors have noticed that the Coot at a certain age — 

 just at that period when it begins to exchange down for feathers, has 

 all the breast, foreneck, and chin, pure white. By the 17th of August 

 these parts have generally turned grey. 



