362 Mr. O. Salvin's Five Months' Birds' -nesting 



whole niass^ from the colour on their expanded wings, looking 

 like an animated rosy cloud. They are extremely difficult of ap- 

 proach ; and 1 only succeeded in shooting one, which proved to be 

 a splendid male. On dissecting this bird, I found in the gizzard 

 nothing but the vegetable matter that grows at the bottom of 

 these lagoons ; I am therefore led to suppose that this forms the 

 principal part of its food, and not the worms which burrow in 

 the mud, as Mr. Darwin suggests. {' Naturalist's Voyage,' new 

 ed. page 66.) We found the bird equally abundant at Djendeli 

 throughout the month of May, but obtained no certain clue to 

 its breeding localities or nesting habits : the Arabs could tell us 

 nothing, and we were unable to discover anything ourselves. 



132. Casarca rutila. (Ruddy Shieldrake.) 

 Though this bird is numerous in all the salt lakes of the 

 elevated plains, its egg is one of the most difficult to obtain. 

 One nest only rewarded our labours. The rarity of the eggs is 

 hardly so surprising, when the situation chosen by this bird for 

 its nest is considered. It selects a hole or crevice of a cliff for 

 its breeding place, and associates with the Raven, the Black 

 Kite, and Egyptian Vulture during the period of the reproduc- 

 tion of its young. Almost immediately on encamping at Am 

 Djendeli we used daily to see a pair of Ruddy Shieldrakes pass 

 over our tents, their direction always being backwards and 

 forwards between the cliffs to the south of us and the small, 

 marsh between us and the lake. After careful investigation, 

 the nest was discovered to be in a hole in the face of a rock, 

 which required all the skill of Mohamcd and all our appliances 

 of ropes, &c. to reach. The result was four hard-set eggs, 

 which are now in the collections of Messrs. Tristram, Simpson, 

 J. Wolley, and myself. Though the Arabs were aware of the 

 habits of this bird, we did not succeed in obtaining any more 

 eggs. It is probable, from its name, that the Mountain Goose 

 {Casarca cana) of South Africa has similar habits. These facts 

 suggest the interesting question as to how and when the young, 

 when hatched, are conveyed from their aerial home to their 

 natural element, upon which I regret to say I can throw no 

 satisfactory light. 



