Birds of Egypt. 479 



tlie Chat, which was surprisingly tame, and only took short 

 flights between the rock and the raud-wall. At last the 

 Arab came back with a companion, but without a gun. 

 The second Arab said that his brother had a gun and that he 

 would go and fetch him, so away went both Arabs, and for 

 another half-hour did I watch the Chat. At length three 

 Arabs came with a gun, the like of which I had never seen 

 except in a museum. I showed the bird to the third Arab, 

 who had the gun. He took deliberate aim, and the gun 

 missed fire, but the Chat never moved. He tried again with 

 the same result. I then suggested that he should change 

 the cap, which he did. The gun then went off, but missed 

 the bird, which only took its usual flight from the rock to 

 the wall. The next shot Mas more successful, and the bird 

 fell from the wall dead. I paid the three shillings and 

 carried off my prize, which I found to be an adult with a 

 black throat, I give these details to show the extraordinary 

 and abnormal tameness of this rare bird. When I skinned 

 my specimen, I searched long and carefully for the sexual 

 organs, but was unable to discover any, owing to the parts 

 being so much injured by shot. It is, however, presumably 

 a male, from the black throat; indeed, it is exactly like the 

 adult male figured in Dresser^s ' Birds of Europe,' pL 31, 

 except that the white of the uuderparts is less pure and 

 more washed with rufous. The immature bird, figured on 

 the same plate, is a specimen shot by me in Egypt, on the 

 Nile, in INIarch 1864, as recorded by me (Ibis, 1867, p. 60), 

 In spite of this, Seebohm (Cat, Brit. Mus. vol. v. p. 382) 

 makes the assertion that " the Red-rumped Chat appears to 

 be confined to Nubia." He proceeds to say: "There is no 

 example of this very rare Chat in the British Museum, The 

 type (male of the year) is in the Berlin Museum, a second 

 male of the year is in the collection of Mr. E. Cavendish 

 Taylor, and an adult male is in the collection of Canon 

 Tristram. No other examples are known.'' 



The chief characteristic of this Chat is the bright rufous 

 rump, which shows conspicuously in flight, and makes any 

 mistake as to the species impossible. I am glad to have 



SER, VII. VOL, II. 2 M 



