526 ORNITHOLOGICAL SKETCHES 
98. CrconIA ALBA. Common Stork. 
Observed daily in Upper Egypt at the beginning of March 
in great flights of at least several hundred individuals. They 
were flying up-stream along the mountains bordering the 
Nile. We also saw large flocks standing on the sandbanks 
of the river. I never observed single birds in Egypt. In 
Palestine I saw, during the last days of March, the fields and 
meadows between Jaffa and the mountains, full of Storks 
looking for food. At Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and in the 
mountains of Mar-Saba I daily observed flights of hundreds 
upon hundreds, all flying in a northerly direction. During 
the entire time that we were travelling through the valley of 
the Jordan, the grassy steppe-covered mountains that border 
it, as well as the bottom of the valley, were crowded with 
Storks. We often found them even in very arid localities. 
In the evening they always collected at certain spots, where 
there were trees and high bushes, in such numbers that these 
roosting-places really seemed to be quite covered with them. 
The first arrived at sunset, the last left at sunrise. Both 
these trees and the ground round about them were coloured 
with their droppings. We also met with Storks on the fields 
near Nazareth, and between that place and the sea, but never 
in such numbers. 
99. ARDEA CINEREA. Grey Heron. 
In astomshing numbers at Lake Birket-el-Kartn, and on 
the Nile these herons were standing close to one another on 
every patch of sand and all along the banks the whole way 
up to Assuan. 
100. ARDEA PURPUREA. Purple Heron. 
Rather common on Lake Birket-el-Kartin, but observed 
nowhere else in Hgypt. Seen in the Jordan valley, not only 
on the river itself, but also among the great stones and dense 
bushes of the watercourses, yet nowhere common. 
