Cannibalism in Senegal Coucal 
During a visit to Gebel Asfar, near Cairo, on 24 January 1992, 1 saw two 
Senegal Coucals Centopus senegalensis standing in the middle of a paved 
road pecking at an unknown item on the ground. Closer inspection 
revealed that the two birds were actually feeding on a third, less forunate, 
coucal, apparently killed very recently by a passing car. The birds were 
surprisingly persistent in finishing their meal and were very reluctant to 
fly away when approached. I do not know of any records of cannibalism 
in coucals. 
Sherif Baha El Din, Executive Business Service, Cairo Marriott Hotel, PO Box 33 
Zamalek, Cairo, Egypt 
Letters 
The Dead Sea Sparrow in Iraq: a 
correction 
In my account of the distribution of the Dead Sea Sparrow Passer 
moabiticus in Iraq (Summers-Smith The Sparrows, 1988. Poyser: Calton), I 
inferred from Marchant {Ibis 1963 105: 516-537) that the first record for 
Mosul was in the early 1960s. Mr Marchant has, however, pointed out to 
me that the clutches from Mosul were, in fact, collected by RS Stewart and 
IM McNeile in 1947 and 1949, coinciding with the record for 1945 by 
Moore & Boswell {Publ. Iraq Nat. Hist. Mus. 1957, No 12: 239), a reference 
that I overlooked. 
This additional information throws doubt on my suggestion that a 
northward expansion of range (paralleling that in Israel from 1950-80) 
occurred in Iraq, leading to the colonization of Syria, southern Turkey 
and, finally, Cyprus in 1975. It reinforces the alternative hypothesis that 
the species hasbeen present along the length the Tigris-Euphrates valley, 
and even in southern Turkey, for a long time, the absence of records being 
merely an observational lacuna. Further, this keeps open the possibility 
that Israel was the source of the colonization of Cyprus. 
]D Summers-Smith, Merlewood, The Avenue, Guisborough, Cleveland TS'14 SEE, 
UK 
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