Bird-Life of the Anatolian Plateau. 371 



houses built of baked mud, one situated among the ruins of 

 Barata and known as Maden-Sheher, the other among the 

 ruins of an ancient ecclesiastical settlement near the crater 

 and going by the name of Deile. 



The bird-life of the Kara Dagh was fairly rich and varied, 

 considering the peculiarly extreme nature of the climate — 

 great drought in summer, great cold and much snow in 

 winter. Practically all the information gathered regarding 

 it, along with that from the other localities, will be found in 

 the subjoined annotated list of birds. 



An explanatory note with regard to this list is desirable. 

 I had with me the following books : Schmiedeknecht's 

 ' Wirbelthiere Europa^s ' (1909) and the trusty companion, 

 Howard Saunders' ' Manual of British Birds ' ; with the 

 help of these and a good field knowledge of our Scottish 

 avifauna, I was able to identify the majority of the species 

 not already known to me. For the rest, shortly after return- 

 ing home, I consulted the volumes of Dresser's ' Birds of 

 Europe ' (1871-1881) and the ' Catalogue of the Birds in the 

 British Museum,' from which it was possible to identify 

 various others. Recently I have consulted Dresser's * Manual 

 of Palsearctic Birds' (1902-3) and the same author's 'Eggs of 

 the Birds of Europe^ (1910), which contains more recent 

 information as to the breeding-range and nesting-habits of 

 all species known to occur in the western Palsearctic area. 

 In the nomenclature of the various species mentioned in the 

 following list, I have adhered strictly to that employed in 

 the last-mentioned work, in the Preface to which the author 

 states that he is "unable to recognise many of the vast 

 number of subspecies which have been and are still being 

 described." For the present purpose, this is all the more 

 convenient, inasmuch as it would be impossible to refer the 

 birds to their subspecies in the absence of hand-specimens. 

 In a few cases I did actually handle dead specimens (for 

 example, Oyps fulvus, Caccabis chukar, Columba livia, Siita 

 neumayeri, and Pterocles arenarius), but a wing and foot of 

 the last-named (which I now have) were the only specimens 

 preserved. 



The information will be found to refer chiefly to the 



