PASSER SIMPLEX 209 



the outer webs and bases of the inner webs with cream colour ; secondaries 

 similar, but with much broader cream-coloured margins ; lesser wing-coverts 

 white ; larger wing-coverts blackish, fringed with whitish ; lores, circle of 

 feathers round the eyes, chin and throat black ; sides of the neck white ; 

 rest of the underparts white, slightly tinged with cream-colour. 



Iris brown ; bill black ; feet yellowish-fiesh-colour. 



Total length 5-50 inches, wing 3-10, culmen -40, tarsus -80. 



Adult female, spring, from El-Hamman, Tripoli. 



Upper parts yellowish-isabelline throughout ; quills and tail-feathers 

 brown, fringed with yellowish-isabelline ; underparts white, tinged with 

 cream colour . 



Iris bi-own ; bill light brown ; feet yellowish-flesh-colour. 



Measurements slightly less than in the male. 



Observations. — The colour of the bill appears to be yellowish during the 

 winter, as shown by a specimen in the British Museum, obtained in Algeria 

 at that season. 



This bird is undoubtedly a true Sparrow, belonging to the genus 

 Passer, and the distinctive generic name of Corospiza bestowed on it 

 by Bonaparte appears to be uncalled for. The species was first 

 described by Lichtenstein from the White Nile, and the type 

 specimen, collected by Hemprich and Ehrenberg at Ambukohl, is in 

 the Berlin Museum. 



P. simplex is eminently a desert species, occurring, so far as is at 

 present known, in the sandy districts of the Algerian and Tunisian 

 Sahara, the Province of Fezzan in Tripoli, and the desert regions 

 of Nubia and the White Nile. The species, however, will no doubt 

 eventually be found to occur in other desert districts of the African 

 continent. 



Although not uncommon in the localities it frequents, the bird 

 appears to be somewhat local in its distribution, and is not found 

 everywhere in the sandy desert. In Tunisia it is only to be met with 

 in the inland desert districts lying to the south of the Chott Djerid. 

 I have never myself visited this bird's home, nor had the good fortune 

 to meet with it. Baron v. Erlanger appears to have found it fairly 

 common in the neighbourhood of Timbain and Bir-Touil, districts 

 situated not far south of Douz, where he observed it in small flocks 

 and companies, but never in pairs. This was in winter-time, when 

 the breeding season had not yet commenced, but an old nest con- 



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