156 SEA-BIRDS 



of the Straits of Gibraltar until 17 March 1930, when from the research 

 ship Dana A. V. Taning (1933) saw small flocks in a sea-area also 

 occupied by grey phalaropes off the Rio de Oro coast of West Africa. 

 But it is the grey phalarope (as P. F. Holmes (1939) particularly shows) 

 that appears to have a regular wintering area off the coast of sub- 

 tropical and tropical ^Vest Africa, from Madeira and the Canaries 

 to the Cape Verde Islands and beyond; indeed some elements clearly 

 carry on to the Cape in South Africa, probably via the Gulf of Guinea 

 and the Cameroons; there are a few inland records in South Africa. 

 The remaining sea-area known to be inhabited by the two phal- 

 aropes in the winter is that part of the Indian Ocean that stretches 

 from the Gulf of Aden to north-west India, and which includes the 

 entrances of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. This concentration of 

 phalaropes is discussed by R. Meinertzhagen (1935) and several 

 others: probably both species approach it from the Eurasian arctic 

 breeding-grounds mostly overland; the records of red-necks suggest 

 so, though some elements of both species pass through the Mediter- 

 ranean. However, neither has yet been recorded from Egypt. 



