168 BIRDS OF EGYPT. 



chest ; in not quite adult plumage some of the feathers on the 

 neck and crop are narrowly edged with dull black. Beak 

 and legs black, irides dark brown. 



Entire length 11*5 inches; culnien 2-3; wing, carpus to 

 tip, 55; tarsus 0"5. 



Fig. Sharpe's Mouogr. Alced. pi. 19. 



Fam. COEACIAB.^. 



146. CoRACiAS GARRULA, Linn. Boiler. 



This is only a bird of passage in Egypt and Nubia, ar- 

 riving on its way north about the end of April. I first 

 met with it at Koos on the 26th of that month ; and two days 

 later I killed three out of a party of four that I saw near 

 Dendera. In the spring of the year they are not rare in 

 Egypt. They are rather shy ; but, owing to a fancy they 

 appear to have for certain clumps of trees, they may be easily 

 obtained by waiting near where they are first seen, and then 

 getting them driven back by a companion. The birds which 

 I shot at Dendera were obtained in this manner, as they had 

 at first slipped out at the further side of the clump and settled 

 in the open fields. The food of the three that I examined 

 consisted entirely of beetles. 



Head and neck bright bluish green ; upper part of the 

 back and scapulars chestnut ; rump ultramarine, shading ofi" 

 to green on the tail-coverts ; quills black with blue reflections, 

 especially on the under surface ; base of the quills, and all 

 the wing-coverts bluish-green, with the exception of a bi'oad 



