THE IBIS. 
NINTH SERIES. 
No. XI. JULY 1909. 
XVIII.— Contributions to the Ornithology of the Sudan — 
No. IV.* On Birds observed on the Red Sea Coast in May 
1908. By A. L. Butler, F.Z.S., M.B.O.U., Superin¬ 
tendent of Game Preservation, Sudan Government. 
I spent the month of May in 1908 on the Bed Sea coast in 
the vicinity of Port Sudan, and the ornithological notes then 
made form the subject of this paper. The dates on which 
migratory birds were met with were carefully recorded daily. 
The great number of Blackcaps, Garden-Warblers, and 
Barred Warblers seen was remarkable, and the main line of 
migration of these three species seems, in the Sudan, to lie 
along the Bed Sea coast. None of them is ever abundant 
at Khartoum, and I often saw more of them in half an hour 
than I have seen in eight years in the Nile Valley. I was 
surprised to find them still in such numbers in Africa late 
in May. Possibly these late individuals are the birds from 
the most northern parts of the range of the species. 
Port Sudan lies about forty miles north of Suakin. A fiat 
scrub-covered plain extends from the sea to the ranges of 
barren mountains twenty or twenty-five miles inland, sandy 
near the coast, and becoming stony as the hills are neared. 
Through these rocky hills runs a narrow valley known as the 
Khor Arbat, in which is that delightful rarity in the Sudan, 
a permanent flowing stream. This loses itself in the sands of 
the plain shortly after emerging from the hills. I found the 
* See 1 The Ibis,’ 1905, p. 301, 1908, p. 205, and 1909, p. 74. 
SER. IX.-VOL. III. 2 d 
