630 



rose they frequently uttered a little snapping sound, and took refuge in some neighbouring 

 tamarisk bushes. I have also occasionally seen them flitting over the water towards sunset." 

 According to Von Heuglin (Ora. N.O.-Afr. i. p. 128) this Goatsucker inhabits Nubia throughout 

 the summer, and especially the sand islands in the province of Dongolah, where it is found 

 in large numbers, and breeds in July and August. In April and May, and again in September, 

 large flocks were met with by Von Heuglin in Lower Egypt, in places where, he says, " it is 

 otherwise not to be met with (for they frequent the small acacia-groves on the edge of the 

 desert), and in Haifa, where it is scarcely able to find shelter from the glare of the sun. They 

 rise most unwillingly, and will often run along, with puffed-out throats, uttering their curious 

 note, from one bush to another, though they can see well enough. I once shot six, all females, 

 out of such a flock consisting of more than fifty individuals." 



This Goatsucker does not appear to have been met with in Palestine ; but I have examined 

 a specimen obtained by Mr. Blanford in Baluchistan which agrees closely with examples from 

 Egypt ; and it was obtained by Dr. Severtzoff in Turkestan, and described by him as new under 

 the name of Caprimidgus arenicolor. I possess the specimen from which Dr. Severtzoff's descrip- 

 tion was taken ; and, after a careful comparison of it with Egyptian examples, I have no hesitation 

 in uniting it with the present species. He says (I. c.) that it is common only on the Lower Oxus, 

 rarer on the Syr and in the south part of the shores of the East Caspian, and is everywhere a 

 summer visitant. In a MS. note in my copy of his work on the fauna of Turkestan he writes as 

 follows : — " There is no constant difference in colour between the young and old birds ; but the 

 former are recognizable by their laxer plumage on the body. This lax plumage is moulted in 

 July, soon after the young leave the nest and when they are in family parties with their parents ; 

 and, judging from these parties, two or three young are reared from each nest. About the end 

 of August these family parties break up ; and then the young have lost the immature plumage, 

 except as regards the under tail-coverts. After leaving their parents they are found in pairs ; 

 and the old birds leave the Lower Oxus about the first half of September, the young remaining 

 till the end of that month, and some few until the middle of October. I met with the present 

 species near the Lower Oxus, and in the undulating thinly bush-covered sand-wastes, as also in 

 the densely bush-covered alluvial marly clay country, never very far from water, round which 

 they fly after sunset. On the Lower Syr (Jaxartes) it was rarer ; and here I first noticed it, and 

 received specimens also from Krasnovodsk, on the east coast of the Caspian." 



Beyond what few notes I give above, I find nothing on record respecting the habits of this 

 species ; and scarcely any thing is known about its nidification. Von Heuglin says (I. c.) that the 

 nest is a mere depression in the soil, usually close to some halfa or under an acacia bush ; and he 

 found in it two eggs, which he describes as being smaller, paler, and more ochreous yellow in 

 tinge than those of Caprimulgus europceus, clouded with light ashy blue and brownish yellow, and 

 measuring 12^'" by nearly 9'". The old birds, he adds, sit very close, and when disturbed will 

 only run a few paces from the nest. 



In coloration, as well as in size, there is no slight individual variation in the present species. 

 Even in the few specimens I have now before me I find this very perceptible ; for of two examples 

 from Egypt one is lighter and more isabelline than the specimen from Turkestan, and the other 

 is darker and greyer; and in one the wing is barely 7'3 inches in length, whereas in the other it 



