and its Birds in 1888. 213 



I always found haunting the marsh and very shy. Stnrnus 

 vulf/aris I afterwards shot at a farm not far from Salamis. 

 Before leaving Kuklia I had obtained, in addition to the 

 commoner DuckSj Tadurna cornuta, Fuligula uijroca, F. cris- 

 tata, Limosa cegoccphala, and a Whimbrel, which was taken 

 by a cat just as I had placed it on ray table for skinning. 



While shooting in the marsh, I came across a most curious 

 trap, the mode of action and use of which I could not make out. 

 A tiny well, about four inches across and twenty deep, and 

 carefully and smoothly made, was sunk in the marshy ground. 

 On either side two little forked sticks about three inches 

 high supported a light cross stick over the hole, and on this 

 revolved a little bobbin or spool to which a fine string was 

 attached^ which led down into the hole ; near the end of this 

 string, and at intervals of about two inches from one another, 

 were tied five little ciips or tubes closed at one end. These 

 were made from the bamboo-like hollow cane which grows 

 so abundantly near the marshes, and were .about the size of 

 half a cigar. One or two of them hung in the water, of 

 which there was a few inches at the bottom of the little well, 

 but the rest were not submerged. The ground near the trap 

 had been cleaned and bared, and then scratched neatly into 

 little ridges and furrows and wetted, and some green duck- 

 weed was also placed in a little heap near. I am in hopes that 

 some reader of ' The Ibis ' may be able to explain this trap, 

 about which I am totally in the dark, although I imagine it 

 must be intended in some way to catch Snipes. 



Spring in Cyprus is not without its drawbacks, and one of 

 the chief of them is the prevalence of high winds, which in so 

 parched a countiy are but euphemisms for dust-storms. 

 The spring of 1888 was liberally supplied with them, and w^e 

 experienced spells of unusually cold weather, although, oddly 

 enough, the season was a rather advanced one. On the 7th 

 of March, when I visited a ruined Venetian watch-tower not 

 very far from the INIonastery of Agia Napa, I have a note to 

 the effect that the Asphodels, Calendula, and Ornithogalum 

 Avere in full flower and the pretty little Iris, Sisyrinchimn, 

 nearly so. On this day I shot Sylvia subalpiim, and ten days 



