5G6 Letters, Extracts, and Notes. 



XXVII. — Letters, Extracts, and Notes. 



We have received the following letters addressed " To the 

 Editors of 'The Ibis ' " :— 



Sirs, — I think the: following observations may interest 

 your readers. 



On Saturday, April 19th, at 3 p.m., I noticed an extra- 

 ordinarily large flight of birds coming towards my camp 

 from the other side of the Red Sea. Their course was 

 N.N.E. ; my camp being situated on the shore of the Sea in 

 hit. 29° 5' N., long. 30° 4' 15'' B. 



On the closer approach of the birds I found that they 

 were Storks in a rather exhausted condition, in flocks of 

 500 or GOO birds each. They were flying at a height of 

 about 70-7"; feet above the sea. Immediately on its arrival 

 each company soared up high in the air in a kind of spiral 

 column, presumably to spy out the land, and finding no 

 water (the nearest well was some fourteen miles distant) 

 continued their course in a N.E. direction across the desert. 

 This went on until 5.30 p.m. 



I instructed some members of my staff to try to make a 

 rough estimate of the numbers in the Socks, and on com- 

 paring notes we found that each detachment seemed to 

 consist of about 550 birds, and that no fewer than 17 de- 

 tachments had arrived, and. alter performing their spiral 

 evolution, had continued their journey to the north-east. 



Can you give me any explanation as to where this 

 enormous array of birds (about 30,000) came from and 

 whither they were going ? 



Yours &c., 

 Jebel Tanka, Robert H. Mackenzie 



by Abu Zenima, {Mining Engineer). 



Eastern Desert, Sinai. 



[The birds were, no doubt, White Storks (Ciconia alba) on 

 their return journey northward to breed in Europe and Asia, 

 but their congregation in such enormous numbers is, we 

 believe, a fact that has not been previously recorded. — Edd.] 



