Dr. A. L. Adams on the Birds of Egypt and Nubia. 23 



trees ; the Domestic Sparrow in houses also, preferring, as usual, 

 the habitations of man and the dust and dirt of the crowded 

 city and mud huts to the open country, where the other takes 

 up its quarters. In November and December, during the ripen- 

 ing of the dlmrra, Spanish Sparrows assemble in enormous 

 numbers, and commit much damage to the crop*. In conse- 

 quence of this at early morn men and boys armed with slings 

 repair to the fields to frighten away the crowds of these birds 

 which are seen scouring across the country and attempting to 

 settle on the ears of grain. Any evening at that season, just as 

 the sun dips behind the grey-white limestone-cliffs close to the 

 ancient Necropolis of Thebes, dense flocks of Spanish Sparrows 

 may be seen constantly passing southwards to their roosting- 

 quarters in the little island at Luxor. The sudden rush over- 

 head of thousands of wings is startling, whilst the eccentric-like 

 oscillations and wheelings to and fro of the vast living masses 

 are singularly strange and beautiful. I fancy Mr. Taylor must 

 have mistaken the Domestic Sparrow for the Italian P. italia 

 (Vieill.)t. I have not seen the bird with maroon crown and 

 unicolor sides in Egypt or Nubia. The only variety of P. sali- 

 cicola I have noticed is in Malta, where I made a large series, 

 and found that although the Spanish is the Sparrow of that 

 island, there are shades of plumage intermediate between it and 

 the P. italia, showing a well-marked gradation from the one 

 to the other. I must, consequently, differ from Dr. Bree J, and 

 consider the Italian Sparrow more closely allied to the Spanish 

 than to the Domestic species. 



LiNOTA CANNABINA. 



Erythrospiza GITHAGINEA. 



I put these two pretty little Finches together, as I was sur- 

 prised to find them so often associated in Egypt. Along the 

 confines of cultivation and rocky situations bordering on the 

 desert, the clear tinkling call of the Trumpeter Bullfinch is heard, 



* " When the ancient Egyptians meant to express ' evil actions,' they 

 drew a bird hke a Finch." — Bunsen. 

 t Ibis, vol, i. p. 48. 

 ;|: Birds of Europe, vol. iii. p. 131. 



