THE OOLOGISTS' RECORD. 



Edited by KENNETH L. SKINNER. 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 



Vol. I -No. 1.] [March 1, 1921. 



EAST AFRICAN NOTES. 



The writer left London on 17th June, 1920, for Zanzibar via 

 Suez. Port Sudan was reached on 12th July. Great heat prevailed, 

 up to 110° in the shade on board, and the desert looked anything 

 but inviting. However, an excursion south-west of the town, 

 made between five and nine a.m. of the following day, was not 

 entirely unproductive. Crossing a rubbish-strewn waste we entered 

 a region where isolated wells permitted of some cultivation and 

 found a Prima, which I took to be P. gracilis {Licht.), breeding 

 in low bushes and hedges round the sandy gardens. One nest 

 contained three fresh eggs, small, rounded, and well covered with 

 cloudy brick-red markings. Another was just ready and a third 

 apparently deserted : at least four pairs of the birds were seen. As 

 I was walking beside a fairly high hedge a dove burst noisily forth 

 on the other side ; I was just in time to identify it as Oena capensis 

 {L.), the Namaqua Dove, and presently found the tiny frail nest, 

 built well into the middle of the hedge and containing one slightly 

 incubated egg. This dove was fairly common in the vicinity. 

 Other birds noted were a Pelican, a Gull (probably Larus leucoph- 

 thalmns, Temm.), a Vulture of the genus Neophron, Charadrius 

 tricoUaris, VieilL, Corvultiir crassirosfris [Riipp.), Rhinocorax affmis 

 [Riipp.), a Lark of the genus Pyrrhidaitda, and one other, and perhaps 

 half a dozen other birds. The interesting thing was that the few 

 birds there were belonged chiefly to iEthiopian and not Palaearctic 

 types. 



At Aden, a few days later, the harbour was as usual full of Kites, 

 Milvus cBgyptuis [Cm.), whose nests one could see high on the cliffs 

 about the tanks — but they were not in use. From the look of a 

 nest of Riparia ohsoleta {Cab.) actually in one of the tanks, but out of 

 reach, and the discovery of fragments of a dove's egg under a tall 

 fig tree at the same place, we concluded the season was not long 

 over. The Bulbul, Pycnonotus arsincB {Licht.) was the only other 

 bird I remember seeing ; a reminder that Aden also forms part of 

 the /Ethiopian region, despite its being in Asia. 



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