AFRIC'S CORAL STRAND 391 



others displayed every intermediate gradation of speckled or 

 mottled dress ; even their legs and feet agreed in the general 

 mix-up of colours. Clearly to a tyro these reef-herons presented 

 problems beyond any hope of settlement within brief days or 

 weeks. These, therefore, I passed over to await the time when 

 some naturalist on the spot shall have leisure to work out 

 their life-history and plumage-changes throughout the year. 



TROPIC-BlRD (Phaeton ethereus). Hardly had we entered 

 Ethiopian waters than, in mid-Gulf of Suez, on January loth, 

 1913, a Tropic-bird in exhausted condition boarded our s.s. 

 Gaika. To me this species had always been associated solely 



TROPIC-BIRD, GULF OF SUEZ January loth, 1913. 



with the seas of the Southern Hemisphere, and its presence in 

 such latitudes as this seemed amazing almost scandalous? 

 Butler at that date had never received a specimen. But the 

 romance was short-lived. Later on, the Tropic-bird was dis- 

 covered breeding on rocky islets in the southern Red Sea 

 particularly on Dahlak Island, near Perim. So the glory of my 

 discovery quickly vanished. 



Inland from Port Sudan we have thrice spent several days 

 examining the scrubby bush-jungle of the " Maritime Plain." 

 In its main features, however, the bird-life here resembled that 

 at Sinkat, etc., already described, and a list of the local species 

 would be superfluous; -Some, however, had not been previously 

 recorded, such as, e.g., Sylvia mystacea, S, nana, the blackstart, 

 blue-throat, and blue mountain-thrush (Monticola cyaneus) ; 



