228 • BIEDS OF EGYPT. 



the 15th of that month, and afterwards saw it in great 

 abundance as I descended the Nile, sometimes on the bare 

 fields, but more frequently by the sides of small pools or on 

 the numerous sandbanks of the river. The flight is very 

 peculiar and varied, the birds at times passing rapidly 

 through the air in flocks, like Plovers, or else floating at 

 a considerable height with outspread wings, or again playing 

 over the water after the manner of Terns. When I first saw 

 a single specimen of this bird rise from a small pool, I should 

 have taken it for a Green Sandpiper, which it closely re- 

 sembled in the colour of its back and flight, had it not been 

 for the greater length of the pinions. Probably the larger 

 portion of these flocks do not remain in the country to breed, 

 but pass on into Europe, returning again in October or 

 November on their way south. When I met with them, 

 their chief food consisted of locusts, which were extremely 

 abundant. 



Upper parts olive-brown, shaded on the nape with sandy 

 colour ; quills and greater wing-coverts brownish black ; tail- 

 coverts and tail, which is forked, white, the latter with a 

 broad brown ending to the feathers ; throat sandy colour, 

 bordered by a narrow band of white feathers tipped with 

 black, forming a collar ; chest sandy colour, shaded on the 

 sides with hair-brown ; remainder of the body white ; under 

 wing-coverts chestnut; beak black, with some light red at the 

 base ; legs dusky olive ; irides brown. 



Entire length 10 inches ; culmen 0"6 ; wing, carpus to 

 tip, 7"7 ; tarsus 1*2. 



Fig. Gould, B. of Eur. pi. 265. 



