156 Phillips, Birds of the Sudan. [April 



Arabic name "Abudjenah," or "The father of the four wings" 

 well describes the appearance of the male in flight. Heuglin says 

 that these ornamental plumes are at first perfect feathers, but by 

 December the barbs on the basal part of the shaft begin to drop 

 out. This process continues until April, when nothing is left but 

 the bare shaft. In our specimen of February the shaft is bare 

 except for the terminal two inches. 



We found this species rare and very local. Each male seems to 

 have a separate feeding range which he works night after night. 

 They come out very early from the bush and cease their flight 

 earlier in the night than the other kinds. 



At Fazogli we were fortunate in securing an entirely new species 

 which I called Caprimulgus eleanorce. (Plate XIII.) It is a large, 

 dark and finely marked nightjar, most nearly related to an Indian 

 form, C. monticola. Africa is rich in Capriinulgidae and there may 

 remain a number of rare species still undiscovered. 



I must omit most of the smaller birds in this account, but a few 

 may be mentioned. We found a little colony of a plain-colored 

 swallow at Fazogli, breeding in burrows dug in the ground. This 

 bird, Chelidon griseopyga, is apparently rare, for Butler does not 

 mention it in his various papers on Sudan birds, and the British 

 Museum Catalogue only recorded three specimens. The burrows 

 of these birds, which I cannot find have ever been noticed before, 

 were some ten feet long and six to ten inches below the surface of 

 the open plain. The nest of one we dug out was made of straw, and 

 three feet from the blind end, containing partly fledged young on 

 January 25. Whether this bird digs its own burrow in this hard 

 baked loess is still an open question; but I think this probable. 

 So far as I know, only one other swallow, Hirundo puchcti from the 

 Congo, nests in this manner. Its burrows (Ornis 1885, p. 587) 

 were supposed to be those of animals. They were three feet long 

 and were found at an obtuse angle, the angle holding the nest and 

 being at the deepest part. 



We got four kinds of bee-eaters, one, the magnificent red-breasted 

 Merops nuhicus, is the most glorious of its kind. It is very large, 

 with a long, pointed tail, habits like a swallow and a breast and 

 back which seem to reflect the glory of the sunset. These birds 

 were scarce till we reached the Dinder River, and we lamented our 



