TO JOTTINGS ABOUT BIRDS. 



in small parties, each band confining itself to a 

 comparatively small area of country. 



2. THE BARBARY PARTRIDGE Caccabis petrosa 

 (Gmelin), is commonly distributed throughout 

 the mountain districts. I met with it throughout 

 the Djebel Aures. It frequents the wooded hills as 

 much as the bare and scrub-clothed mountain-sides 

 and the barley-fields. The nesting season begins 

 late in May. Two nests I took were mere hollows, 

 one under a juniper bush, the other beneath the 

 shelter of a grass tuft. The loud monotonous 

 note of cawee-cawee is kept up very persistently. 

 It would appear that there is a desert race of 

 this species, as Canon Tristram remarks that 

 examples obtained by him in the desert were 

 smaller and paler. 



3. THE QUAIL Coturnix communis, Bpnnaterre, 

 passes the Sahara on spring and autumn migra- 

 tion, and is generally distributed throughout the 

 cultivated districts of the Tell, where it breeds. 



4. THE BLACK-BELLIED SAND GROUSE Pterocles 

 arenarius (Pallas), is universally distributed 

 throughout the Sahara, but is replaced by the 

 Senegal Sand Grouse in the mere southern deserts. 

 This Sand Grouse lives in parties during the 

 autumn and winter. It is most active towards 



