140 Captain Stanley S. Flower,


Various authors state that it is called in Arabic “ Ter el

temsach,” or “ Crocodile Bird ; ” this is probably a translation

into Arabic at European suggestion, and not a name of genuine

native origin.


Essentially an African bird, the Egyptian Plover is found

from Angola to Senegambia in the West and along the Nile

valley in the East; it has also occured in Palestine and other

Mediterranean countries, aud is said to have strayed as far North

as Sweden.


According to all authorities, the Egyptian Plover is

common in Egypt from the Delta southwards ; in the latest book

on Egyptian birds, Lady William Cecil’s Bird Notes from the

Nile, (1904) page 86, this species is said to be “Very common,

specially in Upper Egypt.” That it does occur in Egypt is

amply proved by specimens in many collections,* but it appears

to be not so very common nowadays ; in nine years residence in

the Nile valley I have never seen this bird in Egypt, though I

know it well in the Sudan, and Mr. M. J. Nicoll tells me he has

never seen it in the sixteen months he has spent in Egypt.


The most Northerly point I have met the Egyptian Plover

at, is Abu Hamed, from there past Berber, Atbara, Shendi aud

the Shablulca gorge to Khartoum, I have seen it all along the

Nile, and as far South as the sudd-county of the Bahr-el-Gebel

and South-West at lake Ambadi in the Bahr-el-Ghazal, but it

is on the Blue Nile that I have found it most numerous. Three

times : once in the beginning of the rainy season, Juue-July;

once near the end of the rains, September; aud once in winter,

November-December ; I have been along the Blue Nile from

Khartoum to Roseires (about 380 miles) aud back, aud at each

season of the year have all along this stretch of river, daily seen

Pluvianus cegyptius in large numbers, on banks and islands, flock

after flock, sometimes I have counted forty to sixty Egyptian

Plovers in one flock; although often seen alone, they more

frequently congregate in flocks with the Spur-winged Plover,

Hoplopterus spinosus, aud also with the Stone-Curlew or Thick-

knee, CEdicnemus senegalensis.



* My father, the late Sir William Flower, collected specimens opposite Gebel

Abufayda, 27th January, aud near Sohag-, 3rd and 4U1 February, 1874.



