THE RED SEA HILLS 
359 
On the deserts of the interior I have notes of finding two similar 
nests at Jebel Surgham and one at Jebel Gerein on February 14th 
and 26th respectively; as well as others of the abounding short-toed 
lark (Catandrel/a brachydactyla). 
Lichtenstein’s Desert-Babbler (Argya acacia ).—Another of 
the desert-types clad in sand-hued monotones, but in figure, a slim, 
smart-built bird; equally common on high ground or low, on coast or 
far inland, and gifted with a resonant musical whistle which sounds 
farther away the nearer you approach the performer. A nest at 
Sarrowit, 3500 feet, contained on March 28th two turquoise-blue 
eggs, like large hedge-sparrow’s. Being built in the very heart of a 
horribly matted thorny acacia, 8 feet high and 20 feet across, the twin 
Raven QCorvus umbrinns ') on Head of Ariel—Sarrowit. 
treasures cost lacerated hands and arms to secure, the thorns recalling 
(Lynes writes) the “indurated malice of the sword-broom and pin¬ 
cushion gorse in Spain.” 
Crows and Ravens.— Our camp at Sarrowit was attended by a 
retinue of pied crows and ravens, the latter of the brown-necked species, 
Corvus umbrinus; whereas at Erkowit, though only 20 miles away, all 
the ravens belonged to that weird, broad-winged form distinguished as 
C. affinis —sketches of both kinds annexed. The “brown-necked” 
ravens were all as black and as glossy as our British ravens, and their 
nesting-habits precisely the same. In April I put one raven off her 
eyry which, by sign, evidently contained ravelets; and situate exactly 
as our Northumbrian ravens nest—-in a cavern, with overhung rocks 
above and a sheer face below. Three weeks earlier, on March 18th, 
Lynes had found another nest with three eggs in a heglig thorn-tree at 
Sinkat—a strongly-built stick nest lined with camels’ hair. 
