(• 40 ) 



the huge encalyptns-trees in the officers' gardens, bnt .also on huildinjrs. All the 

 twenty-seven adult males wc brought home arc grey-headed, with the black bases 

 to the feathers well developed, and only three of them show a slight admixture of 

 chestnut in the grey crown. 



Sparrows were of course absent from the uninhabited desert, but in the 

 Tidikelt oases they were common again, though not so numerous, it would seem, as 

 in El-Golea. We skinned twenty-five adult males in Igosteu anil In-Salah, and 

 all these were grey-headed, mostly with very distinct black bases to the crown- 

 feathers, sometimes with much black, so that in two specimens nearly the whole 

 crown is black. No hybrids or I'a.sger hisp(ii<iolcmis were found. 



Comparing the series from In-Salah and Igosten with that from El-Goleu, it is 

 evident that the feathers of the back are more edged with chestnut than with 

 brownish buff, as iu the El-GoIea series and in other southern Algerian Sparrows 

 generally. The i)aler, more brownish bnff edges to the feathers of the liack, are 

 api)areutly due to the mixture wilii I'ditxer ItixpaniolenxtK, which has crcara-colonred 

 streaks on the back, while they are generally more chestnut in /'. domesticm 

 (lomvtilicH.'i and northern /'. fhmcutinm tirigitanus. These dilferences between tiie 

 various grey-hea<led Saharan Sparrows are, however, not constant, and we can, at 



present, only call them 



Passer f/ome.iticu.'i tinr/itri/iu.i. 



The hybridisation of /'. domesticiis {tingitawix) with /'. his/jaiiiolt'iusin, which is 

 so complete in many places in Algeria, is apparently not so advanced in Marocco; 

 we have received series of Sparrows, collected by Higgenbach, from Mazagan, 

 Mogador, and Shishawa, ten hours from Marrakesh, and only a few specimens 

 (Mogador : like " flilckigrri^' Shishawa) show the rai.xtnre with liixpaniolenisis, yet 

 from Marrakesli came the type of " Passer a/iaxver." 



In El-Golea (March and May), and in In-Salah (■Ai>ril) numerous eggs and 

 young were found at the same time. The eggs vary exactly like those of 

 F. domesticus domesticus, and the clutches range from three to five, those of only 

 two eggs being apparently incomplete. 



•^. Passer simplex saharae Erl. 



(With regard to the distinctions hclweeii /'. •.. ■uilianii- and P. ». «hiij)li:r wc ftrc as yet no moro 

 advanced than last year, as no fresh Nubian specimens are available, but it seems that slight 

 differences exist between the two supposed races. Cf. Noi; Znol. xviii. p. 4S2.) 



Coming from Tonggonrt we first came across the desert Sparrow south of 

 BIcd-el-Ahmar, about 40 km. south of Tonggourt, and afterwards we found it 

 in almost every suitable locality. Such places are sand-dunes or sandy plains with 

 the vegetation typical for the sand-dunes, provided that there are nesting-places, 

 which are of the most varied description. Specimens were shot at Safet Ini(juel, 

 about 26 km. north of El-Golea, at Hassi Okseibat, Hassi JIarroket, and south of 

 El-Meksa, in the great Erg-bent-Chaouli. Farther south we did not see these 

 birds, and at In-Salah — where we should have expected some — and in the Southern 

 Oued Mya we found no trace of Passer simplex. These sparrows were most 

 common in the Ergs north of El-Golea. In the latter district nearly all the nests 

 were found in " Gmiras," i.e. smaller or larger stone pyramids, erected as landmarks. 

 Other nests were built in the stone walls of deserted temporary buildings, in the 

 stone walls protecting the entrance of a well, on a rafter under the roof of a 

 " Bordj," in a bush of Rctama raetam (once), and in thick bushes of Nitraria 



