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More Notes from North- West Africa.



breeding season. The Sparrows here were certainly House, not

Tree, as I formerly thought they might be. A short walk next

morning round Batna only revealed Sparrows, Corn Buntings

and Ravens. I watched a Stork bring a big stick to its nest

where its mate was sitting, both birds then took some time to

arrange it comfortably. In the extensive forests near Batna such

interesting birds as the Algerian Black-headed Jay, the Algerian

forms of the Pied and Green Woodpeckers and Bonelli’s Eagle

may be met with.


Batna was left about ten, and El Kantara reached at mid¬

day. This is a delightful place, just on the edge of the desert ; a

great variety of birds may be met with, as, on the one hand,

there are the mountains, and on the other, the extensive Date

Palm groves. The Hon. Walter Rothschild and Dr. Hartert

were collecting here, I saw some of the birds they had got, in¬

cluding a fine hen Bearded Vulture ( Gypaetus bar bains') shot on

her nest the day I was there ; the nest contained an addled egg

and a newly-hatched young bird, an attempt was going to be

made to bring it up by hand. I could not help regretting the

death of the parent bird, and remembered the pleasure given me

by the sight of one of these noble birds on the wing at the ChifFa

Gorge on my first visit. I spent the next day (March 20th) in a

stiff climb up the mountains. On the way up I saw several pairs

of Black Chats (Saxicola leucura), the cocks sitting on the big

boulders pouring out their short, cheerful songs; I expect they

were nesting. On my former visit, at the beginning of Dec. 1909,

I saw these birds lower down, but now they all seemed to have

gone up the mountains to breed. A familiar little sandy-coloured

Lark was very common, they were mostly in pairs running about

among the stones 011 the hillside, they were probably the Algerian

Desert Lark (. Ammomanes deserti atgeneusis ). I climbed up to the

top of the mountain, which was fairly flat and covered with grass,

here I saw what I took for a Barbary Falcon ( Falco barbarus ), a

Kestrel, Ultramarine Tits, and the only Blue Rock Thrush

(Monticola cyanus ) I met with for certain, perched on the rocks

at the extreme summit. O11 my first visit this bird was quite

common below near the Palms. A Golden Eagle’s nest contain¬

ing eggs was found close to this spot about a week later, but I saw



