Recently published Ornithological Works. 251 



Another passage about the bird-life of the White Nile 

 reads as follows : — 



"The lagoons were thronged with Storks, Herons, Ibises, 

 Cranes, and other Waders of many kinds. While mobs of 

 Teal were wheeling in the air, Geese, Sheldrakes, Terns, and 

 ponderous Pelicans occupied the open water. The scene 

 was most lively in the evening. The air then became full of 

 the whistling of wings, and the varied conversation — piping, 

 wailing, croaking — which goes on at feeding-time, as well as 

 of those strange ventriloquising notes, the origin of which is 

 so hard to trace, but which I was inclined to attribute in 

 this case to Night-Herons. The Pelicans were the latest to 

 arrive, and the most dignified and silent. They spend their 

 days on the river, and, like the Terns, only come in to rest. 

 Their flight — a series of stately curves — is a splendid sight. 

 The Spoonbills seemed to fish the most zealously, pushing 

 their broad beaks in front of them in the shallow water, like 

 children with shrimp-nets on Cromer sands. Ever and anon 

 the resonant shout of the Fish-Eagles, a pair of which were 

 generally to be seen resting on some thorn-tree or dead snag, 

 rang out over the waste like the call of the muezzin to 

 prayer, while the other sounds reminded one of the stir in a 

 Mohammedan city which follows the sunset in the mouth of 

 Ramadan." 



1 5 . Clarke on the Migration of Birds. 



[Bird Migration in Great Britain and Ireland. Fifth Interim Report 

 of the Committee, consisting of Professor Newton (Chairman), Rev. E. 

 P. Knubley (Secretary), Mr. John A. Harvie-Brown, Mr. R. M. Bar- 

 rington, Mr. A. II. Evans, and Dr. II. 0. Forbes, appointed to work out 

 (lie details of the Observations of Migration of Birds at Lighthouses and 

 Light-ships, 1880-1887.] 



Mr. W. E. Clarke here gives us a further instalment of 

 his work connected with the Migration of Birds, work which 

 he has carried out so well that we can only regret the 

 possibility, through want of adequate support, of his being 

 obliged to bring his undertaking to a premature conclusion. 

 The subjects chosen for the present lieport are the Fieldfare 

 and the Lapwing; of the former the migrations prove to be 



