SIX MONTHS’ BIRD COLLECTING IN EGYPT. 171 
are as much at home among the mud-built hovels of an 
Arab village as in the streets of Belgravia; and their plum- 
age is brighter and cleaner. The roofs of the fellahin’s huts, 
built of mud and straw, are a favourite resort for a flock to 
cluster upon, or small road-side bushes of the long-thorned 
tribe. About the middle of March they betake themselves 
to the fields of ripening corn, and I sometimes roused very 
large flocks indeed. Compared with English Sparrows, the 
crown of the head is decidedly greyer.* 
107. SPANISH SPARROW, Passer salicicola, Vieillot. 
As to the relative abundance of this species, my observa- 
tions lead me to agree with Captain Shelley (Ibis, 1871, 
p. 141), but certainly not with his predecessors. I only met 
with it in the Delta, and there it was far less numerous than 
the Common Sparrow (P. domesticus, Linn.) + 
aoe 
108. TRUMPETER BULLFINCH, Erythrospiza githaginea 
(Licht.); Pyrrhula payraudei, Audouin. 
First seen at Minieh, after which hardly a day passed but 
the clear tinkling note of the Trumpeter Bullfinch was heard, 
and on some occasions, as at Gebel Silsilis, very large flocks 
of them were seen. It was an old Algerian acquaintance, 
* I have more than once met with a variety of the (cock) Sparrow in 
England, having the throat and chest, which normally should be black, 
a rather bright chocolate brown. 
+ Mr. Hazel states in “ Naturalist” for 1853, p. 20., that a Fringilla 
Hispaniolensis was shot in some woods near Portsmouth, and after- 
wards placed in the Museum of the Philosophical Society. From 
enquiries I have made I believe that museum is now broken up, but 
the specimen may be at Haslar Hospital Museum. 
