406 StafF-Surg. K. H. Jones on Birds observed 



No. III. ('Ibis/ 1909, p. 74). 



P. 79. Lamprocolius chalyb^us (Ehr.). — The birds from Tembura 

 and Wail, in the Bahr-el-Ghazal, are L. chalcurus (Nordm.), 

 in which the tail is strongly glossed with reddish violet. The 

 female from Tawela, on the Nile, is L. chai.yb^us, with no 

 violet on the tail, and agrees in this with all other specimens 

 from that river. 



P. 82. Camaroptera brevicaudata (Riipp.V — If C griseoviridis 

 (v. Mlill.) is distinct, these two birds should stand under the 

 latter name. 



XIX. — Notes on some Birds observed on the Trans-Siberian 

 Railway Line. By Staff-Surgeon Kenneth H. Jones, R.N. 



As a means of transit from the Far East to Europe, the 

 Trans-Siberian Railway is now so well known that it is un- 

 necessary to say much about it as a highway. 



Commencing at Vladivostok, on the Pacific coast of North- 

 eastern Asia, it runs both east and north across Manchuria 

 and Transbaikalia, through ten degrees of latitude, to Irkutsk, 

 near the south-western shore of Lake Baikal, and thence 

 almost due west over the great Siberian Plain to the Ural 

 Mountains. After crossing the Urals into Europe, the line 

 continues in a westerly direction for about two days' journey 

 and then turns northward to reach Moscow. As a means of 

 making a land-journey with ease and rapidity through 

 many degrees of longitude, over a wide tract of the 

 Palgearctic Region, and through the areas of distribution of 

 many species of birds, it offers unequalled facilities to the 

 ornithologist. 



Moreover, birds, of all the wild inhabitants of this region, 

 alone give an opportunity to an observer of making notes 

 from the train itself, and this the more easily because of the 

 slow progress and of the many, and often lengthy, stoppages 

 which occur — frequently in the woods and steppes themselves. 



It is, of course, an unavoidable misfortune that as the train 



