SIX MONTHS’ BIRD COLLECTING IN EGYPT. 187 
cinthinus, Temm., is really found in Egypt. I have no 
doubt as to what my birds are, but they are not quite so 
green as three which I have alive. 
Mr. Burton, the taxidermist in Soho, showed me a speci- 
men which was obtained in Egypt some years ago by 
Mr. Baird. 
I must devote a word or two to my tame ones. I have 
had them some years now, and they could not look better 
than they do. They are out of doors all the twelve months, 
but in the winter their cage is covered up at night with 
matting. I attribute their good health to its being a 
movable cage, which enables us to give them fresh ground 
as often as we like. If given fish, they only eat the head. 
They like a-little grass, but their staple diet is sopped bread. 
For a long time they were dumb, but now not a day passes 
but they give utterance to the shrill note which carries me 
back to the swamps of Egypt. 
134B, Coot, Fulica atra, Linn. (Hasselquist, 34). 
I never saw any Coots on the river or at Birket-El- 
Kairoun, but at Lake Menzaleh I saw such multitudes as I 
should not have believed possible. See page 93 for an 
account of the method of taking them with a casting net.* 
135. SOLITARY SNIPE, Gallinago major (Gmel.). 
One at M. Filliponi’s killed at Damietta. I have a very 
good female obtained on the oth of May, 1863, by Mr. Allen 
at Damietta ; but it is not a common bird. 
® Very few authors have noticed that the Coot at a certain age— 
just at that period when it begins to exchange down for feathers, has 
all the breast, foreneck, and chin, pure white. By the 17th of August 
these parts have generally turned grey. 
