358 
Mr. 0. Salving Five Months’ Birds’-nesting 
Duck ( Erismatura merso); and here, too, it was that I used to see 
the greatest number of Red-crested Whistling Ducks ( Brant a 
rufina). A distant screaming warns me to watch the Gull-billed 
Terns ( Gelochelidon anglica) as they come skimming the water, 
making for the freshly-cut grass-fields to seek their breakfast of 
beetles and grasshoppers. At every corner of the reeds I now 
startle up a Little Bittern ( Ardetta minutd); and the Grey-headed 
Wagtail [Budytes flava) continually shows itself. Soaring over 
the Arab tents, if the dogs allow me to look up, I see Egyptian 
Vultures and Black Kites { Neophron percnopterus and Milvus 
ater) } and nearer the cliffs a few Choughs and Alpine Swifts 
(Pyrrhocorax graculus and Cypselus melba). My walk is now 
terminated; and, ready for breakfast, I usually find the tents 
beset by Arabs: most of them come to talk with our servants, 
but some with more profitable intent, bearing vegetables, 
cooscoos and com. The boys bring eggs or information about 
nests—the object of another ramble. 
Though we never obtained the eggs of the Little Egret, I am 
inclined to think it a much earlier breeder than either the Buff- 
backed or Squacco Herons, as a female I shot at Zana, on June 
22nd, bore every appearance of having hatched its young— 
the moulting of the feathers having advanced considerably, and 
the eggs in the ovary being small. 
113. Buphus bubulcus. (Buff-backed Heron.) 
Though local, the Buff-backed Heron occurs abundantly 
where it is found. I first met with it near Bizerta and after¬ 
wards at Zana, at which latter place it was common, a large flock 
frequenting the marsh. We did not obtain any of their eggs, 
and to all appearance the birds had not entered upon their do¬ 
mestic duties when we left their haunts. Is the bird mentioned 
in Mr. E. C. Taylor's ‘ Ornithological Reminiscences of Egypt/ 
and called by him Ardea russata and Ardea bubulcus , Savigny, 
this bird, or its Indian representative * ? The eggs from Ceylon 
* We believe that there is no doubt that the Egyptian bird is the true 
Buff-backed Heron—the same species which occurs in England. The 
Indian Ardea coromanda, Bodd., to which bird Temminck first applied the 
epithet russata (See Man. d’Orn. ed. 2. p. 566), is not separable, according 
to G, It. Gray, but is distinguished by Bonaparte (Consp. ii. p. 125), 
