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SAVAGE SUDAN 
Kotunbul, were nesting small dark herons resembling night- 
herons with telescopic necks closing down into their shoulders. 
The nests were built of grass and rushes, with a few twigs; 
eggs four in number, like those of the reef-herons close by, but 
smaller and of a deeper blue. All were hard-sat. These birds 
were green bitterns. 
SANDGROUSE. —Several shot on Kamaran and other islands, 
coming down to drink at the wells in the dry season; some, 
however, breed there since young were caught hardly able to 
fly. These sandgrouse may have been Pterocles lichtensteini or 
possibly Pt. exustus . 
Farisan Falcon ( Falco concolor). —This hawk is charac¬ 
teristic of the Red Sea islands, the Farisan group in particular 
being a main stronghold—hence I venture to christen it in that 
name. On Kotunbul Island, these small dark-grey falcons 
were numerous and several nests found. “ These were mostly,” 
Nichol writes, “simply depressions in the sandy debris 
accumulated in angles or shallow clefts in the rocks ; but others 
had built up fairly big bundles of twigs. One nest contained 
three young, another three eggs, and a third, one egg. They 
were certainly late-nesting.” 
The eggs brought home are of kestrel type, though paler 
than average British specimens. Butler writes:—“ I should 
say these were certainly eggs of the beautiful little dark-grey 
Falco concolor. I thought so directly I saw them, and the eggs 
agree well with Heuglin’s two figures and measurements. He 
writes: ‘Not rare on the uninhabited rocky islands of the 
southern half of Red Sea. Their breeding-season is July- 
August and the nest very simple—the two to three eggs lying 
on an underlayer of sand in a cranny of the rock. Occasion¬ 
ally, however, we found some surrounded by dry twigs. Falco 
concolor lives mostly in pairs or families; but we have observed 
three to six pairs together on cliffs of quite limited extent.’” 
Hemprich’s Gull ( Larus hemprichi). —The gulls’ eggs 
brought home are all of kittiwake type—that is, of a dull stone- 
colour speckled with chocolate-brown and submerged markings 
of pale slate-blue. These, Butler has no doubt, belong to 
Hemprich’s gull, since they agree precisely with Heuglin’s 
