406 
Staff-Surg. K. H. Jones on Birds observed 
No. III. ('Ibis/ 1909, p. 74). 
P, 79. Lamprocolius chalyb^us (Ehr.).—The birds from Tembura 
aud Wau, in the Bahr-el-Ghazal, are L. chalcurus (Nordm.), 
in which the tail is strongly glossed with reddish violet. The 
female from Tawela, on the Nile, is L. chalyb^us, with no 
violet on the tail, and agrees in this with all other specimens 
from that river. 
P. 82. Camaroptera brevicaudata (Riipp.V—If C griseoviridis 
(v. Mull.) is distinct, these two birds should stand under the 
latter name. 
XIX.— Notes on some Birds observed on the Trans-Siberian 
Railway Line. By Staff-Surgeon Kenneth H. Jones, R.N. 
As a means of transit from the Far East to Europe, the 
Trans-Siberian Railway is now so well known that it is un¬ 
necessary to say much about it as a highway. 
Commencing at Vladivostok, on the Pacific coast of North¬ 
eastern Asia, it runs both east and north across Manchuria 
and Transbaikalia, through ten degrees of latitude, to Irkutsk, 
near the south-western shore of Lake Baikal, and thence 
almost due west over the great Siberian Plain to the Ural 
Mountains, After crossing the Urals into Europe, the line 
continues in a westerly direction for about two days’ journey 
and then turns northward to reach Moscow. As a means of 
making a land-journey with ease and rapidity through 
many degrees of longitude, over a wide tract of the 
Palsearctic Region, and through the areas of distribution of 
many species of birds, it offers unequalled facilities to the 
ornithologist. 
Moreover, birds, of all the wild inhabitants of this region, 
alone give an opportunity to an observer of making notes 
from the train itself, and this the more easily because of the 
slow progress and of the many, and often lengthy, stoppages 
which occur—frequently in the woods and steppes themselves. 
It is, of course, an unavoidable misfortune that as the train 
