Letters, Extracts, Notices, ^c. 473 



9 inches, wing 475, tail 3-u, tarsus 14, bill 75 (measured 

 in the flesh). 



Locality/. Cliimnnji, in tlie hills above Trevandrum, about 

 4000 feet elevation. " Shot feeding on the path with others 

 at daylight.''' 



Yours &c., 



W. L. SCLATER, 



Deputy Si(perintende7it, Indian Museum. 



74 Jermvn Street, St. James's. 

 June 8th, 1891. 



Sir, — " On revient toujours a ses premieres amours " says 

 the proverb, and in accordanee with that principle I, wishing 

 to escape from the rigours of an Italian winter, left Naples 

 for Alexandria, on ray sixth visit to Egypt, the 29th of last 

 January by the Italian line of steamboats. The first sign of 

 our nearing the Egyptian coast was on April 2nd, when 

 about midday I saw, following our boat, several of the 

 peculiar Egyptian race of Larus fuscus, which differs from 

 the more northern form in having the mantle much darker 

 in colour, and in not usually assuming a winter phase of plu- 

 mage. About 2 o'clock we sighted the lighthouse of Alex- 

 andria, and entered the harbour before sunset. The sea was 

 rough outside, and the harbour was full of flocks of Larus 

 minutus, a species of Gull I had never before met with in 

 Egypt. The adults are conspicuous by the dark underside 

 of the wings ; the immature birds have the underside of the 

 wing white, and the back marked with black like a young 

 Kittiwake. For the next three days the sea continued rough, 

 and the Larus minutus remained in the harbour in great 

 numbers, after which the weather improved and the Gulls 

 disappeared. 



I stayed a week at Alexandria, and visited the bird-market 

 daily. Among the less common Egyptian species I saw 

 several examples of Tadorna cornuta, and on one day no 

 less than ten Rhynchcea capensis, among which were 

 some adult females. I need hardly mention that in this 

 species the female is larger than the male and differently 



