GAME-BIRDS — STORKS — IBIS 29 



quills to the white of the rest of the plumage renders the former an un- 

 mistakable bird. 



Among game-birds, two kinds of mountain-partridge inhabiting 



the Mediterranean province are found in northern Africa, namely, the 

 Barbary red-legged partridge (Gaccabis petrosa) and the European red-legged 

 G. rufa. The latter chiefly inhabits mountain plateaus abounding in heather, oak- 

 bushes, rosemary, rock -roses, and thyme, as well as rocky hills, where similar 

 vegetation grows, and even on bare rocks. It is indigenous to the neighbourhood 

 of the Atlas, but also occurs in southern France, Spain, Portugal, Madeira, and 

 the Azores, and was introduced into England about a century ago. Red-legged 

 partridges resemble the common grey species in their mode of nesting and in the 

 choice of food, but, unlike the latter, occasionally perch on trees. About 13 inches 

 in length, the European red-legged species has a reddish brown crown, a white 

 band behind the eye, a moderately broad dark band across the white throat, and 

 black spots below the throat-ring ; its most distinctive mark being, however, the 

 broad black-edging to the chest-feathers. 



Those stately birds, the storks, are common objects in an African 



landscape ; among them being the saddle-beaked stork (Ephippiorhyn- 

 chus senegalensis), the males of which stand 5 feet in height. This species, which is 

 the largest, as it is one of the handsomest, of its kind, ranges from the Blue and the 

 White Nile to the west coast and eastwards to the Indian Ocean. The sand-banks 

 of the Nile and other rivers, and the shores of lakes and swamps form the haunts 

 of this species, which lives in pairs, but whose habits are scarcely known. A more 

 familiar bird is the African adjutant or marabout stork (Leptoptilus crumeniferus), 

 a species considerably larger than the European white stork, and mainly inhabiting 

 tropical Africa, although also a common inhabitant of the upper Nile valley. 



Symbolical of Egypt is the sacred ibis (Ibis cethiopica), which 



breeds on the upper Nile, in Nubia, the Sudan, and Abyssinia, and 

 ranges so far south as Cape Colony, where, however, it is rare. In ancient times 

 this ibis may have been a native of lower Egypt, where it was found by the 

 Romans when they conquered the Delta, and by them introduced into Italy. It 

 is, however, possible that the ancient Egyptians, who worshipped it as the bird of 

 Thoth, and kept its mummies in their temples, may have introduced this sacred 

 bird from the shores of the Red Sea, and that with the fall of the Pharaohs it 

 disappeared from the country. Like the rest of its tribe, the sacred ibis has a bare 

 head and neck, which are black, as are also the beak and feet. The plumage, on 

 the other hand, is pure white, except for the black shimmering greenish tips to the 

 wings, and the violet-black edges of the shoulder-feathers. This bird, whose flesh, 

 on account of its fishy taste, is not eaten by Europeans, lives On the molluscs, insects, 

 crabs, and worms which it finds on the banks of rivers and lakes. 

 Sand-Grouse, Among other European and Asiatic types, the sand-grouse are 



Bustards, represented in northern Africa by the pin-tailed Pteroclurus exustvs 

 and waders. an( j tne c ] ose -barred species, Pterocles lichtensteini. The south 

 Em-opean, or Andalucian, bustard-quail (Tumix sylvatica) is likewise a by no 

 means uncommon species in our area. In the rail group we have the crested coot 

 (Fuliea cristata), a species distinguished from its common European relative by 



