SIX months' bird collecting in egypt. 241 



at the back of the head, which you can feel projecting under 

 the skin. 



It was great sport shooting them in the evening, whicli 

 may be easily done as they come flying down the Bar-El- 

 Wady canal, which unites the Bar-Joseph to the lake. 

 Here one of us would hide up behind the stunted bushes, 

 and as they were very regular we knew exactly what time 

 to look out for them. It is necessary to see them a long 

 way off, as they are rather shy withal, and then to keep 

 well hidden ; but sometimes the specks which were taken 

 for Cormorants turned out to be only Buft'-backs, though 

 generally they flew in a more straggling flock. Now and 

 then one comes stealing low over the water, or a pair pass 

 out of shot. They are going to a bed of tamarisks a mile 

 out in the lake, where they intend nesting with the Buft- 

 backed Herons. We saw a few sitting upon nests, but they 

 had evidently not begun to lay. Indeed they may only 

 have been using empty nests as a convenient perching 

 place. They took up a position on higher boughs than the 

 Buff-backs — often seven or eight on the top of the same 

 tamarisk. All the nests there seemed to me to be the same, 

 and to be built of the same materials, so that I judge they 

 were all Buff-backs' or Herons' nests of some kind. I saw 

 a Buff-back settle upon one, on which a moment before 

 there had been a Cormorant. They are such good divers, 

 that of the first six shot (by my friend) only one was 

 bagged. They are very easy to skin when not fat. 



Hartmann found the P. africanus at Gebel-Tair, (J. F. O., 

 1863, p. 300) and either this species or the Lesser Cormorant 

 was formerly common at Damietta, and known by the 

 name of " Fessek," as I am informed by M. Filliponi, who 

 however has not seen one this seven years. 



R 



