478 Mr. E. C. Taylor— iVo^e^ on 



but I do not think I saw any after passing the Straits o£ 

 Messina. This species of Gull is, in the winter, abundant 

 in the western part of the Mediterranean, but becomes rarer 

 as you go eastward. 



I arrived at Alexandria on December 31st, and stayed 

 there till January 6th, 1896, when I went to Cairo, where, 

 with tlie exception of four days in Februar}^, spent at Mena 

 Hotel, at the Pyramids, I remained till nearly the end of 

 February. On the 29th of that month I left Alexandria for 

 Trieste and Venice. While at Cairo I visited the bird- 

 market nearly every day. I enumerate below the rarer and 

 more noteworthy species of which I saw specimens there. 

 The chief ornithological event in my visit to Egypt was un- 

 doubtedly the obtaining near the Pyramids, and close to the 

 Mena Hotel, that rare Chat, Saxicola xanthoprymna, as 

 related at length in my notes. I again ^ visited the ostrich- 

 farm at Matariyeh, and ascertained that the task of incu- 

 bation is shared by the male and female ostriches. 



SA.XICOLA XANTHOPRYMNA (Hcmpr. ct Elir.) . The Red- 

 rumped Chat. 



On the 17th of February last, during my stay at Mena 

 Hotel, close to the Pyramids of Ghizeh, I took a morning 

 stroll along the edge of the desert, at the base of the rocky 

 plateau on which the Pyramids stand. About a third of a 

 mile from the hotel, and close to the Bedaween village, I 

 saw a Chat perched on a fragment of rock. On my near 

 approach it took a short flight on to an old mud -wall, when 

 I at once saw from its conspicuous red rump that it was 

 nothing less than Saxicola xanthoprymna. I had no gun 

 with me, and I knew no person at the hotel from whom I 

 could borrow one. I was at a loss what to do, when an Arab 

 passed near. I hailed him, and asked him if he had a 

 gun. He said he had one at his house in the village. I told 

 him to go and get it, and that I would give him three shillings 

 if he would shoot for me that little bird, which he agreed to 

 do, and went oif to the village. For half-an-hour I watched 



* For an account of a previous visit see Ibis, 1891, p. 474. 



