390 



SAVAGE SUDAN 



In midwinter, I do not recollect seeing a single tern on this 

 coast, though the gulls then carried on " business as usual." 

 The terns had clearly sought hibernal attractions elsewhere. 



Amidst the feathered crowds assembled alongshore, one 

 notices waders curlews, whimbrels, ruffs, redshanks, dunlins, 

 ring-plovers, 1 sandpipers, etc. including, of course, some of my 

 favourite "globe-spanner" class. These, however, I did not 

 trouble to identify, since a lifetime's study of these wanderers 



WHITE-EYED GULL (Larus leucophthalmus) ADULT. 



has convinced me that merely casual observations of brief 

 duration help hardly at all. Nothing short of patient study, 

 prolonged over continuous periods, avails to solve such world- 

 wide problems as these birds present, and for that there was 

 no opportunity. An analogous case also occurred, as follows. 

 Here, on the Red Sea coast, we encountered (for the first time 

 in my experience) certain egret-like birds known as " reef- 

 herons." Among the few specimens shot, some were spotless 

 v.hite, some deep-grey or of a dull sap-green hue all over, while 



1 Lynes found the Kentish plover (jEgialitis cantiana} nesting near Port 

 Sudan three eggs, hard-sat, April i4th-, 1914. 



