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SAVAGE SUDAN 
The pied crows (Corvus scapulatus ) were also breeding in the 
hills. One nest on March 29th, with two young, was in a “pot-hole” 
of a gigantic granite boulder, a regular kaaba , 18 feet high, that lay 
stranded on the plateau; a second, the next day, was built in a thorn- 
tree and contained five speckled blue-green eggs. 1 
Blue rock-doves, paler than ours, bred in isolated jebels, and so 
also did crag-martins and white-rumped swifts; while in the mimosas 
turtle-doves (Turtur roseigriseus ) had eggs by early in April. 
The above represent some few of the chief types of bird-life among 
the hills. Many other species could be added—coursers, stone-curlews, 
sand-grouse, pallid harriers, eagle-owls {Bubo cinerascens ), a single little 
owl {Athene noctua ) rather beyond his true latitude, and falcons, 
Pied Crow—Sarrowit. 
but will conclude this chapter with following note from diary 
“Throughout the sandy and rocky deserts of Northern Sudan one 
notices, region by region, corresponding changes in the depth of 
monotone colours, darker or paler, prevalent in bird and beast. Thus 
on the tawny deserts beyond Omdurman both Certhilaudas and 
Pyrrhulaudas are markedly paler than those on this darker Erkowit 
plateau; while an intermediate phase (of different ground-colour) 
occupies the Red Sea littoral. Another eloquent example of graduated 
adaptation to altering environment is afforded by the sandy-hued 
Ammomanes : and hardly less so by the desert-babbler {Argya), both 
of which are found alike on sandy and on rocky deserts, and in each 
locality exquisitely corresponding with their immediate surroundings.” 
1 Near the Iron Gates on White Nile, two pairs of pied crows had built 
a twin eyry in a 15-foot thorn-tree, and the owners sat incubating hardly a 
foot apart. This was on March 12th, 1919. 
