LITERATUKE. 3 



during the time military men may have to " put in " at dear, 

 scorching old " Gib." 



There is ample room, for any one with energy, to work out 

 a great deal more information on the birds of the Straits ; but 

 it must be remembered that little can be done in hasty visits 

 of two or three months, or by comparing skins secured by 

 assistants, called " collectors," who know nothing of the habits 

 of the birds they send to those who employ them, and upon whose 

 veracity even as to locality the employer cannot implicitly depend. 



It may be as well to notice such papers &c. as have been 

 published hitherto relating to the ornithology of the district 

 of the Straits. Dismissing the Spanish lists as meagre and 

 full of errors, we commence with the papers written by Lord 

 Lilford in 'The Ibis' for 1865 (p. 166) and 1866 (pp. 173 

 & 377). In addition to the interesting facts they contain, these 

 essays are the first which give any reliable information on the 

 subject, and lay, as it were, the foundation of all the work that 

 has since been done with regard to Spanish ornithology. 



Since then Mr. Howard Saunders has written, also in ' The 

 Ibis' (1871, pp. 54, 205, & 384), a " List of the Birds of 

 Southern Spain," extending as far eastward as Minorca and 

 as far to the north as the fortieth degree of latitude, thus 

 comprising a very large area. He has also contributed some 

 other papers to 'The Ibis' (1869, pp. 170 & 391), which, 

 altered and considerably enlarged, have appeared in ' The 

 Field ' under the head of " Ornithological Kambles in Southern 

 Spain." 



On the African side, Mr. G. W. H. Drummond Hay 

 (Proceedings Zool. Society, 1840, p. 133) gave a list of birds 

 noticed by him at Tangier, but only fifty-five in number, while 

 Mr. Tyrwhitt-Drake wrote a list of the birds observed by him 

 in Tangier and Eastern Morocco (Ibis, 1867, p. 421) ; and a 

 " List of Birds seen near Tangier " appeared in ' Naumannia, 

 but only a list, and not a very accurate one. 



B2 



