532 ORNITHOLOGICAL SKETCHES 
only in Africa, where I noticed it sitting on the islands of 
Lake Menzaleh, while it was common on the banks of the 
Nile and among the fields of the cultivated districts of Upper 
Egypt. 
The Pygmy Eagle has already been treated of among the 
specimens obtained, and I will only add that two of the speci- 
mens had the very dark, almost black dress, while the third 
exhibited the true transition stage of plumage—coffee-brown 
varied with striations and whitish spots. Among the many 
Pygmy Eagles that we saw I also noticed some in the per- 
fectly white dress of the true pennata, by which that form 
used to be distinguished from minuta. 
As I was one day sitting waiting for jackals in the ravine 
below the monastery of Mar-Saba, in Palestine, an eagle flew 
along the upper edge of the rocks, which, from its size and 
plumage, I could only take to be Bonelli’s Eagle (Aquila 
bonelliz), a bird well known to me. 
On the banks of the Nile I observed the Sea-Hagle ( Haliaé- 
tus albicilla) on several occasions, but, singularly enough, 
always young birds in the dark plumage. There could have 
been no mistake, for I examined some with the field-glass 
when they were not more than two hundred paces off. 
I never saw the Cinereous Vulture (Vultur cinereus) in 
Africa; but in Palestine I observed two in the oak woods of 
Mount Tabor, and also fancied that I detected some amongst 
a flock of Griffon Vultures in the mountains bordering the Red 
Sea. Of this, however, I cannot be sure. 
The great Sociable Vulture (Vultur auricularis), which 
only a few years ago was a regular inhabitant of Upper 
Egypt, has now almost entirely disappeared. I saw two 
among some Griffon Vulttires; they were all sitting on a 
sandbank near the carcass of a buffalo that had been washed 
up by the Nile. 
My attention was drawn to them by the way in which they 
