320



Mr. W. E. Teschemaker,



the Sprosser is more rarely seen in the Nile Valley than D.

luscinia, though it is sometimes seen on migration. It would,

however, be impossible to estimate the comparative rarity of the

species unless a large number were collected and other observers

have seen large numbers of Nightingales (many of which would

probably be Sprossers) in the Delta at the time of the spring

flight ,* No Nightingales remain in Egypt during the winter

months, and Witherby, who followed the course of the White

Nile southward from Khartoum for some distance, does not

record either species, though he seems to have come across many

of our summer migrants. They press on further south, following

the course of the great “ river of mystery ”—a mystery which was,

however, really solved some 2,400 years since, when Herodotus

rightly guessed that it had its origin in the melting snows of the

mountains of the far interior. Some Sprossers pass the winter

in Abyssinia and Somaliland, but others in accordance with the

well-known principle that species which summer furthest north

winter furthest south, wing their way to the country of the Masai,

to the Mountains of the Moon (specimens being obtained on

both Kilimanjaro and Kikuyu), to the Great Takes, to German

East Africa, and, passing the normal southern limit of D. luscinia ,

according to Hartert (Vog. pal.) even reach the Zambesi itself.

Kilimanjaro certainly sounds a very unlikely locality for a Night¬

ingale, but it must be remembered that a large area of the base

of the great mountain is clothed with dense forest, swathed in

eternal mist and drenched by incessant rain, and therefore pre¬

sumably affords a bountiful supply of the kind of insect diet

which this species chiefly depends on ; for the Sprosser is a

somewhat lethargic species and would soon starve if it had to

depend on winged insects only for its livelihood. It is essentially

a hunter of caterpillars, a turner of dead leaves and a devourer

of the larvae of beetles, nor have I ever seen it display more skill

or activity in foraging than that involved in hovering beneath a

spreading branch and picking caterpillars from the underside of

the leaves.


D. luscinia appears to have two main routes—one stream



* Mr. Nicoll (Wild Birds observed in the Giza Gardens, Cairo, 1898-1908, p. 9) only

records two Sprossers, while the Nightingale is stated to be abundant and numerous on

the spring migration.— Ed.



