90 Mr. J. I. S. Whitaker on Tunisian Birds. 



in the neighbourhood, I should think this was probably 

 owing to the fact of water being plentiful further south, for, 

 as I observed in my previous paper, the present species 

 seemed merely to visit this locality for drinking purposes, 

 its usual habitat no doubt being somewhat further south. 



I may, perhaps, here mention that when at Biskra in the 

 early part of March, and within a day's journey of that place, 

 I saw some flocks of Sand-Grouse, which seemed very like 

 P. coronatus. They may, however, have been P, senegalus, 

 which species is not uncommon in that district. 



Near OgletAlima I obtained specimens oi Scotocerca saharee, 

 Saxicola moesta, Pterocles arenarius, and a few other species, 

 but I did not find so many birds here as I did last year, when 

 I was a month earlier, many of them having no doubt gone 

 north. Saxicola mcesta, however, was extremely plentiful 

 here, and indeed throughout the country that I visited 

 west of Gafsa, although nowhere else. I found several young 

 birds of this species, some of which must have been quite six 

 weeks old. They were scarcely distinguishable from the old 

 birds, when flying, showing that the bird is an early breeder. 

 I found no nests, although I tried several holes, into which 

 I had seen the birds disappear. It seems, however, to be a 

 favourite habit with this species to enter the rat and jerboa 

 holes, with which the southern plains abound, in search of 

 the insects to be found there. I noticed that this Chat 

 sometimes utters its song when in the act of flying. 



On the 8th April, after having given our Arabs a holiday, 

 wound up by a hearty feast on roast lamb, to celebrate the 

 close of the Ramadan fast, we retraced our steps east- 

 ward, camping that night about halfway between Ras-el- 

 Aioun and Djebel Sota, and the following day we re-entered 

 Gafsa before sundown. 



The weather, which during the past few days had been 

 fine and very hot, now changed again, and we came in for a 

 regular gale from the N.W. Evidently we were destined 

 this year to experience the extremes of climatic vicissitudes ! 

 However, we spent the next day quietly at Gafsa, allowing 

 the gale to blow itself out, and on the 11th April we started 



