Letters, Extracts, Notices, ^c. 121 



city. They picked up the crumbs uuder your very nose, and 

 boldly perched on the bread and the edge of one's wine-glass, 

 a familiarity which at times I found had its disadvantages. 

 They are held sacred, and being thus preserved from injury 

 are perfectly fearless and domesticated. This bird, which is 

 called tabib (doctor), is quite different from the European 

 Sparrow, being of a red-brown colour with pretty markings, 

 about the same size, but of a less stout build. When I woke 

 of a morning there were often one or two of these little 

 fellows on my pillow, and others perched on the end of the 

 bed.^' — Stutfield's ' El Maghreb : 1200 miles' ride through 

 Marocco,' p. 253. [Cf. Tristram, Ibis, 1859, p. 295.] 



Migration at Chicago. — The ^American Naturalist' of 

 September last contains the following curious story (Am. 

 Nat. XX, p. 818) :— 



" The building of the Board of Trade of Chicago has a ring 

 of electric- arc lights around its dome, some 300 feet above 

 the pavement. The ring is thirty feet in diameter, and 

 contains twenty lights. They were lighted for the first time 

 on the evening of January 1st, 1886. On the night of 

 May 8th following, a terrific thunderstorm passed over the 

 city between the hours of 11 p.m. and midnight. During 

 the storm the attention of the few people who were in the 

 street at that time was attracted to the spectacle of a great 

 number of birds hovering about this ring of lights and 

 dashing at them. In the morning it was discovered that 

 hundreds of dead birds were scattered about the foot of the 

 tower, and hundreds more were found upon the roof of the 

 building. When the workmen ascended the tower to renew 

 the carbons in the lights, they found many of the globes 

 occupied by the bodies of birds, some containing as many as 

 eight, and many of the carbons had been broken ofi" by the 

 birds. Over two hundred bodies were picked up by one of 

 the workmen attached to the building, which was but a small 

 part of those carried away by the news-boys and others in 

 the morning. A person who saw them before any were taken 



