Mr. C, W. Wyatt 07i the Birds of Sinai. 7 



I got up the following morning, I found the water in a basin be- 

 side me frozen. We descended Wddy Hebran nearly the whole of 

 the next day, getting into a much warmer climate, and about 

 5 o^clock we stopped again under some palms by a little ])url- 

 ing stream. Here, after I had gone to bed, I heard the " Hood-- 

 liood^^ of the Arabs. It went up the wady, and, judging by 

 the sound, it must have passed close to me. I was sleeping in 

 the open air, yet I did not see anything of it. The Arabs say 

 it is an evil spirit, and that they never saw it. 1 heard it per- 

 haps half a dozen times while 1 was in the Peninsula, and have 

 tired a gun in the direction from which the sound came, in 

 hopes, if it proceeded from an Owl, of putting him up. How- 

 ever, I never saw anything. Could it be the hoot of Phasmo- 

 ptijnx capensis ? At the lower end of the wady, a fine rocky 

 goi'ge, I saw a fine specimen of Bonelli^s Eagle, perched on a 

 lofty crag, but could not get a shot at it. By the stream I 

 found Motacilla sidj)hurea. On the third day we crossed the 

 arid gravelly plain of El Gaa, which extends along the western 

 coast between the mountains and the sea. I spent altogether 

 the best part of four days upon it, in hopes of falling in with 

 Sand-Grouse, but all I saw of tliem was the mark of their feet 

 en the ground. My Arabs said that four birds passed over my 

 tent one morning while I was at breakfast. Near the embou- 

 chure of Wady Hebran, where there are some thick stunted 

 bushes, I shot a pair of ]\Iarmora^s Warbler {Sylvia sarda), but 

 unfortunately lost bo^^h of them in the bushes. They were 

 only winged. I was, however, close enough to identify them, 

 as, in trying to catch them, my hand was often within a foot of 

 them. The beautiful red ring round the eye I saw very dis- 

 tinctly. I visited the same spot the next day ; but I never met 

 with the bird again. Lanius excubitor was not uncommon here, 

 sitting on the top of the seyal-trees, on the look-out for desert- 

 beetles. A seven hours' tramp over the plain of El Gaa brought 

 me within three miles of Tor. I had my tent pitched on some 

 high ground above the marshes, not far from the palm-groves 

 which belong to the monks of the Convent. In front of Tor, 

 which consists of a few huts inhabited chietly by fishing Arabs, 

 there is a small bay. Tlie marshes, which are not of any great 



