526 ORNITHOLOGICAL SKETCHES 



98. CICONIA ALBA. Common Stork. 



Observed daily in Upper Egypt at the beginning of March 

 in great flights of at least several hundred individuals. They 

 were flying up-stream along the mountains bordering the 

 Nile. We also saw large flocks standing on the sandbanks 

 of the river. I never observed single birds in Egypt. In 

 Palestine I saw, during the last days of March, the fields and 

 meadows between Jaffa and the mountains, full of Storks 

 looking for food. At Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and in the 

 mountains of Mar-Saba I daily observed flights of hundreds 

 upon hundreds, all flying in a northerly direction. During 

 the entire time that we were travelling through the valley of 

 the Jordan, the grassy steppe-covered mountains that border 

 it, as well as the bottom of the valley, were crowded with 

 Storks. We often found them even in very arid localities. 

 In the evening they always collected at certain spots, where 

 there were trees and high bushes, in such numbers that these 

 roosting-places really seemed to be quite covered with them. 

 The first arrived at sunset, the last left at sunrise. Both 

 these trees and the ground round about them were coloured 

 with their droppings. We also met with Storks on the fields 

 near Nazareth, and between that place and the sea, but never 

 in such numbers. 



99. ARDEA CINEREA. Grey Heron. 



In astonishing numbers at Lake Birket-el-Karun, and on 

 the Nile these herons were standing close to one another on 

 every patch of sand and all along the banks the whole way 

 up to Assuan. 



100. ARDEA PURPUREA. Purple Heron. 



Rather common on Lake Birket-el-Karun, but observed 

 nowhere else in Egypt. Seen in the Jordan valley, not only 

 on the river itself, but also among the great stones and dense 

 bushes of the watercourses, yet nowhere common. 



