THE OOLOGIST 



107 



from North Carolina and Kansas or 

 Virginia and Missouri northward. 

 Now tlie Wood Thrush is a common 

 southern bird; certainly in this sec- 

 tion, and I have collected a number 

 of sets of their eggs in this, Gwinnett, 

 county. I consider the Wood Thrush 

 a common breeder in Georgia, and I 

 believe an investigation will prove 

 the same thing to be true of all the 

 other southern states. 



John C. Houston. 

 Lawrenceville, Ga. 



Winter Birds of Egypt. 



By F. T. Pember, Granville, N. Y. 



It was my good fortune, in the win- 

 ter and spring of 1912, to spend six 

 weeks on, and to travel by boat 700 

 miles up the river Nile, or as far as 

 Nubia in tropical Africa. This, with 

 almost daily donkey rides through cul- 

 tivated fields and over deserts, to visit 

 the vast ruins of tombs, temples and 

 pyramids, gave me the opportunity to 

 -observe the birds of that country, 

 though as they were mostly new to 

 .me, I failed to identify many of them. 



I am glad that the sentiment to 

 spare the birds, and to study them 

 -without shooting is growing, though 

 in many years of collecting for mu- 

 seum purposes, all over the country, 

 I found that I could positively iden- 

 tify more birds with a 12 gage 

 Greener than with an opera glass. I 

 like them in hand for study, but the 

 birds enjoy the "absent treatment" 

 best. 



The great triangular section called 

 the Delta, is roughly 150 miles on 

 each side. It comprises the most of 

 Lower Egypt, — is made wonderfully 

 productive by yearly inundations — and 

 with the great, shallow Lake Menza- 

 leh, is a perfect paradise for many spe- 

 cies of birds. 



The irrigated section of the Nile 

 ■valley above Cairo, is from one to 



twelve miles wide, and then the vast 

 verdureless Libyan Desert on the 

 west, and the utterly desolate Ara- 

 bian and Nubian Deserts to the east. 

 The first is rich in bird life, and a 

 route of migration, while the desert, 

 though destitute of plants and water, 

 still has birds — Sand Grouse, Ravens, 

 Rustards, etc., though how they man- 

 age to sustain life is a mystery. 



On the great river, a very conspicu- 

 ous bird, which easily claims most at- 

 tention, is the Egyptian or Parasitic 

 Kite (Milvus sergyptinus). It is as 

 large as our Red-shouldered Hawk, 

 and at first I supposed it to be one of 

 the buzzard hawks. The tail is rather 

 long, slightly forked and banded, and 

 the whole plumage is a very dark 

 brown, almost black. These birds 

 have much the habit of vultures and 

 act as scavengers in city and village 

 streets. They are almost as tame as 

 chickens, and often snatch meat or 

 other food from the trays being car- 

 ried on the heads of the natives. They 

 are so abundant that many are always 

 in sight, and at Luxor and other 

 places along the river, I have often 

 counted over 50 flying like gulls about 

 our boat, and they are circling in 

 dozens over every town and city of 

 Egypt. I also found them very plen- 

 tiful in Palestine, Syria, Turkey and 

 Greece, and several times I counted 

 80 to 100 and over, from our hotel 

 window in Damascus, as they sailed 

 about over the city or rested on towers 

 or prominent places, and I could not 

 overlook one-third of the city at that. 

 I found that they could easily pick up 

 any scraps or refuse they might fancy 

 from the water, while on the wing, 

 and that without making even a rip- 

 ple, using the beak only and not the 

 claws for the purpose. I found these 

 birds nesting in February and March 

 on the lofty ruins of the great Temple 

 of Amnion, at Karnak, and on other 



