478 Mr. R. B. 8harpe on Birds from Fao. 
Niam country, where it was met with by Signor Piaggia. 
Yon Heuglin seems not to have come across the species in 
life; and beyond the fact that a specimen was in the British 
Museum from the White Nile, and three specimens collected 
by Botta were in the Leiden Museum, no other locality was 
known until Mr. Blanford received a specimen from Sind 
('Ibis/ 1875, p. 387). Unfortunately no date of capture is 
given of the last-named example. A specimen obtained by 
Dr. O. T. Duke, on the 20th of April, at Nal in Kelat, is in 
the Hume Collection; it is apparently an adult female. 
The male is properly described by Yon Heuglin in his 
‘ Ornithologie Nordost-Afrika^s/ with the exception of the 
colour of the quills, which are said to be pure white at the 
ends, whereas, as Mr. Blanford has already pointed out, the 
outer primaries are shaded with brown at the ends. 
My description of the adult male in the ‘ Catalogue ; 
(vol. iii. p. 316) appears to be correct; but coming from 
Africa the specimen is doubtless in winter plumage, and the 
colours are not quite so clear as in the breeding-plumage— 
that is to say that the back is purer grey, the isabelline and 
black of the crown are both more intense, and the colours of 
the underparts also rather richer in the birds from Fao. 
The bill is yellowish with a horny brown tip, in the White- 
Nile bird; but whether this is an evidence of winter dress or 
is due to exposure to the light in our gallery, I cannot say 
for certain. In the breeding males the bill is jet-black. 
The female in breeding-plumage differs from the male, as 
described by Von Heuglin, in wanting the black on the 
head and face, as well as on the wings, the primaries being 
brown to the ends, edged and fringed at the tips with greyish 
white; the tail-feathers ashy grey or drab, with narrow 
whitish tips, the feathers being subterminally blackish, but 
not to the same extent as in the male. 
[Arriving from S.E. early in April. First individuals 
observed in 1884 were a small flock of six birds flying over 
telegraph buildings on the 10th of April. On the 11th my 
collector brought me a female that he had shot. 
It is not till the middle of June that they breed. 
