THE AUK:

A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF

ORNITHOLOGY.

Vo•.. xxxI. ArRIL, 1914. NO. 2

AMONG THE BIRDS OF THE EASTERN .

BY JOHN C. PHILLIPS.

Plate XIII. •

LOOKINGback on our short collectingtrip into the easternpart of the Sudan,the Blue-Nile basin,it is remarkablehow strongly the first few days of the trip stand out in memory. The novelty of groat spaces,of the groaning,toiling camels,of the burning noonsand deliciousnights, soondissolves into an everyday exis- tence, and one week becomesalmost exactly like the next; so exactly,in fact, that after a monthor moreone ceasesto remark on the weatherand almostforgets he is living out of doors. A feelingrather stealsover one that this is not the open air, but a groatglass house, steam heated and weatherproof. Beholdus then launchedsuddenly from the dusty train into the brilliant moonlightat Sennar. It was ChristmasEve, and all day long the train had been crawling away from , over dustydurrah fields, at an averagerate of just twelvemiles an hour. Amidstgreat confusion we detrainedour ninecamels, giving three of them an opportunityto escape,which, camelllke, they soontook advantage of. In a large thorn enclosurewe stowedaway our luggage,made our beds and turned in. Supper was a brief affair that night. The full moonglared down upon us, a stripedhyena gave his very

Female Caprimulgus eleanore• Phillips, three quarters natural size,

149 x x x

¸ 150 PniI.I.irs, Birds of the Sudan. [AAprU•l musicalcall, and from the sky abovecame the clamorof hundreds and it seemedthousands of EuropeanCranes. Off in the distance was the confusedsound of the village,donkeys, dogs and drumsall jumbledtogether and softenedinto a weird sort of chant. During the night we fought off the many hungry dogs,but not until they had stolenall our availablelunch for the comingday. It was cold by 4:00 A. •I., and we were out early, trying to warm up. At dawnwe took our gunsand strolledoff into the great fields of durrah grain, then mostlyharvested. For milesaround Sennar there is hardly a tree left, the Blue-Nile flows drearily through a deep channelwith high mud banks, with great sand bars and beachesat their bases. The current is swift and the water clear, comingas it doesfrom the mountaihregion of Abyssinia,but by January this river is usually too low for steamboatnavigation. Birds were about these fields in great numbers,but not of many kinds. First must comethe craneswhich winter all the way from Khartoum to Rosscites. They are mostly the Grey Crane of easternEurope, Megalornisgrus grus, but there are someof the smaller Demoiselle Cranes and a few African Crowned Cranes. No bookshad given us any idea of the enormousnumbers of cranes on the Blue-Nile. It was by far the most notable bird sight of the region,and pleasingbecause unexpected. Thesecranes spend the night on the river sandsin flocksof hundredsand alwaysfar away from any cover, so that they are perfectly safe. They feed inland mostly where there is cultivation and never seem to pass along the same flight lines. Their warinessis remarkable and it was pleasantto see such a safe retreat for thesesplendid fowl. I wonderedwhy bird fancierswere made to pay ninety to onehundred and twenty-fivedollars for a living pair, but no doubt on their breedingrange they are scatteredand hard to trap. By the end of February nearly all of these craneshad moved away from Sennar. Other birds we saw that first morning were doves in endless numbers, their calls resoundingin every direction. Here we obtained Turtur isabellinus,which we did not get again. Other turtle doveswere very abundant,and the little long-tailedCape Dove was seeneverywhere, walking about the path in front of us, always very tame. This attractive bird is now imported alive into Americain largenumbers. Shrikesof two kindswere common and a large blue hawk, Melierax metabates,was very conspicuous. This, the commonestlarge hawk of the country, is very sluggish and quite tame. Once, riding along a trail we passedone sitting in a low thorn tree, when to our astonishmenthe came crashing to the ground and lay there completely paralyzed. When we picked him up he offeredno resistanceand seemedperfectly limp, although he still graspeda freshly killed sparrow in his talons. On dissectionwe couldfind nothingdiseased about this bird except possiblya small hemorrhageback of the ear. This was the first time we had ever seena bird struckdown from apparentlynatural causes,but he mighthave sustained a blowpreviously. The most noticeablesmall birds around Sennat were Stone-chats, the commonIsabelline •Xqaeatear, a migrant, and the White Wag- tail, also a wanderer. We have delayed too long around Sennat and must get south- wards, and can only pauseto mention a few of the striking birds. The traveller up the Blue-Nile noticesa fairly suddenentrance to the moreAfrican, or moretropical birds, though the bare scenery of leaflessthom forestis far from tropical in appearance. About E1-Mesherat,or a little before,one gets into patchesof densebush near the river, with elephantgrass, baobab trees, a few pahns and here and there wild fig trees whoseglorious foliage of dark green leavesgives the sunsmitten traveller a denseshade all throughthe dry season. Hidden in these trees are the wary greenFruit Pi- geons. Bird life, numericallyat least, is remarkable in the bush about here. Dense swarms of plain colored Weaver Finches, mostlyof two speciesand now of coursein winter plumage,whirl about with a perfectroar of whigs,lookh•g like swarmsof bees. No one can imagine the size or density of these flocks,which at first are really startlh•gas they hurtle overone's head. We thought that one well directedshot would often kill a hundred. Imagine the feelingsof an Arab whenone of theseflocks takes possession of' his durrah patch, for it spellsruin in a short time. The children are all put to work with stringsand movablescarecrows to frighten birds away, and they are kept busy all day long. The hanging nests of weaver finchesare a conspicuousfeature of the Sudan landscape,and sometimesa small thorn tree will hold twenty or thirty of them. 152 PreLLItS,Birds of the Sudan. [AprilAuk

In the neighborhoodof Karkoj and E1 Mesherat (latitude about 13 N.) we beganto seeGreen Monkeys in the taller trees,and here :andthere the beautiful little Oribi, an antelopewhich will survive long after the great animalsof the easternSudan have beencrowded .out. About in this latitude also, Hornbills of two speciesbecome ,common,though the small red-billedone, Lophoeerusherapriehi is much the more plentiful. Prominent in the memory of those burning hot noons is the rising call of this bird, "Weet, weet," repeatedtill it reachesa crescendo,when the performerstraightens up, openshis wings and bobs up and down. This is almost the only sound heard through the heat of the day, when bird life is hushedand the nativesare fast asleepin their conicalstraw huts. The large Brown Hornbill is a very differentbird. He is wild, usually seensingly, and inhabits high treeswhere he emits a loud anvil-like note,.at first single,then double,and accompaniedby a flappingof the wings. There is anothersort, the great Abyssinian Ground Hornbill, which is rare and we did not seeit. A shyand very beautifulbird of the Blue-Nileis the Red-breasted Bush-shrike,whose crimson underparts gleam through the thickets like a living flame. These birds have responsivenotes, the male and female always combiningin producingone call. I cannot do better than quote from Dr. G. M. Allen's notes on this subject. "Usually one bird gives a loud rich-tonedwhistle, "a-wheeo" the first syllablevery faint; the otherbird instantlyreplies with a harsh 'ehurr,' given either at the same instant, or followingso closely that it is hard to distinguishthe exact moment. SometimesI have heard two differentbirds respondto a singlebird whistling. More rarely the 'wheeo' is given in responseto a call from the other, a harsh 'ehurr ehurr.' The two birds of a pair usually keep dose together." Dr. Allen thought that the inale gave the first note, the whistle. As one getssouth, parrots become much more plentiful. They are of two sorts. A long-tailed kind, the commoner,ranges pretty far north whereverthere are largetrees, and breedshigh up in holes,even in January and February. They crack the nuts of the Laloab tree, a fruit muchused by the antelopesand also very goodto quenchone's thirst. This parrot and its nearly related but larger Indian cousinare both seenbreeding at large in the Vol. 1914XX. XI I] PHILLIPS,Birds of theSudan. 153 zoologicalgardens in Cairo. The short tailed Meyer'sParrot with orangespots on the bend of the wings,is a small and very lively bird, exceedinglyhard to collect,and only commonin the southern part of our region. It is hopelessto try to giveany ideaof the largenumber of species which we encounteredin the two months,January and February, and a poor time of the year it was at best. In the way of game birds the Helmeted Guinea-fowlstands first, though in gamehess he certainly standsat the foot of the list. This bird is seenall over the eastern Sudan, often in incredible numbers, and I can truth- fully state that I encounteredone flock containing a thousandhead, a great bluishmass of movingfowl which ran aheadof me, occasion- ally rising by the hundredand alightingagain. Flocks of a hun- dred or morewere too commonto be remarkedupon. This species seemsto live by sheerforce of numbers,its stupidity is notorious, and it is preyedupon by all the small and very numerouscarni- votes, by the abundanthawks and by long lines of string nooses set by the Arabs. An Englishresident told me he had never seen its nest •nd A. L. Butler makes the same statement in ' The Ibis.' He thinksit must nestonly in the rainy season,when travel is very difficultand the wholecountry is a seaof mud. In January,there were still somevery young lookingbirds mixed in with thesebig flocks. The francolinof the countryis Francolin•sclappertoni, a rather largeand handsomelymarked partridge which occurs mostly along the stripsof heavy elephantgrass near the river. In the morning it gets out onto the openedges of the grassand risesbriskly and rather quietly, like a pheasant. It might make quite a goodgame bird, but its flesh,though white and fine looking,is rather a disap- pointment, for like that of the guinea fowl it is tough and dry. Perhaps if the birds could be hung in a cool place the result would be different. The river birdsof the Blue-Nile and its tributary the Dinder are not numerous,for there is very little food on the sandy, shifting shores. That patriarch of all birds, the Whale-headedStork, or Shoe-billis only found on the , and the great Goliath Heron we did not see at all, though it does occur in the eastern Sudan, more commonlyperhaps in the summerseason of flood. 154 troLLoPs,Birds of the Sudan. [AAprU•i1

The only commonheron was a plain, grey lookingspecies, Ardea melanocephala,which fed on insectsin the great, open, damp "meres." These "meres" are a common feature on the , wherethey attract greatherds of game,holding as they do, water and succulentgrasses till late in the dry season. With these herds of game enormousflocks of Little Egrets associate,and a lone old buffalo bull would often have a number perchedon his back. Thestomach ofone of these Little Egrets contained lizards, locusts,and to our surprise,a butterfly. We saw the curiousHammer-head Stork, an ugly and lonely lookingbird quite often, and alwaysby himself,and there was a Night Heron whichwe did not get. The EgyptianGoose brings up thoughtsof the departedgreat, for he figuresso often on the tombsof the earlydynasties as to have a real historicalsignificance, while his egg had in thosetimes a religiousmeaning. Apparentlyhe wasdomesticated by the early Egyptians,but if so, this art was lost very long ago. Hayne, in his book on domesticanimals, discussesthis point and quotesSt. Hilaire'saccount of an attempt in Franceto add this bird to our poultry. The attempt extendedover a numberof years,1839 to 1845,and waspartly successful,inasmuch as the birdsincreased in weightand grewlighter in color,while their breedinga•d laying time began to be extended. Nothing permanent,however, was accomplishedand this speciesis nowonly an ornamentand not a very desirableone either, for its temperis veryuncertain and it is oftendangerous in a collectionof smallerwater fowl. This goose existsat presentin Egypt and on the NubianNile only in little scatteredtroops, while its great strongholdis the lower White- Nile. On the Blue-Nile we saw it in scatteredpairs and little flocks. Its flesh is tough and dry. Thereare scarcelyany otherwater fowl on the Blue-Nile,except the curiousComb Ducks; but wadingbirds, mostly of common migratoryspecies, are numerous. Among the residentshore birds the most attractiveby far is the very commonlittle Egyptian Courser,Pluvianus ozgyptius. I think this is the prettiest shore bird I have ever seen,very tame, with flight like a SpottedSand- piper,and the mostbeautifully marked and crestedhead, and a spotlesschest crossed by a broadblack band. This is the famous Vøl]9X14X•I] PHILLIPS,Birds of the Sudan. 155

"Crocodile-bird" of the Greeks, and in.Arabic it is called the "CrocodileWatcher." It is doubtfulwhether this bird ever really feeds inside the crocodile's mouth. The sand bars are alive with these little fellows,and they feed busily around the very jaws of the huge reptileswith absoluteunconcern. They are said to bury their eggs. The common resident plovers are the African Thick-knee or Stone Plover, and the handsomeSpur-winged Plover. These latter are conspicuousLapwings with white faces, black breasts and black head caps. We made a specialpoint of collectinglarge numbersof nightjars and bats. As often as we had time we would take our guns at sunsetand wanderdown near the river for the eveningflight, when we were campedin a suitablespot. For the bats we tried to get an open pieceof bare sandwhere we couldfind them in the dark, but for the nightjarswe pickedout openspots in the tall elephantgrass. This was a delightfultime of day. The glare of the afternoonwas over, the last line of womenand girls filed back to the village with waterjars gracefullypoised on their heads,huge flocksof weaver birds were settling for the night, whirring down by thousandsand disappearingin the tall grasswith muchchirping and rustling,the last doveswere flying back after their eveningdrink, whilethe wind droppedsteadily to the universalcahn of the winter night. Every oncein a while a flock of weaverswould rise out of the grasswith a dull roar, only to settle immediately,and often the first night-hawk of the eveningwould frighten them into a panic as he sailedover their roosting place. When it was almost dark the grassregion would becomealive with two speciesof nightjars, the long-tailed and the Egyptian. The numbersof thesebirds about Mangangani was really remarkable. The formerhas a singleclucking note and is the commonerof the two. We often sprungit in the woodsin partiesof three or four in the daytime. It is a very handsomebird with a tail in the male ten or eleveninches long, a broadwhite bar acrossthe primaries and another acrossthe wing coverts. The femalehas a shortertail. The Egyptian nightjar is a pale colored short-tailed species. The third kind is the famous standard wingedspecies, in which the male has a pair of elongatedraquet tipped primaries,reaching twenty-one inches in somecases. The 156 PHILLIPS,Birds of theSudan. [AprilAuk

Arabic name "Abudjenah," or "The father of the four wings" well describesthe appearanceof the male in flight. Heuglinsays that theseornamental plumes are at first perfectfeathers, but by Decemberthe barbson the basalpart of the shaft beginto drop out. This processcontinues until April, when nothing is left but the bare shaft. In our specimenof February the shaft is bare exceptfor the terminal two inches. We found this speciesrare and very local. Each male seemsto have a separatefeeding range which he worksnight after night. They comeout very early from the bush and ceasetheir flight earlier in the night than the other kinds. At Fazogliwe werefortunate in securingan entirelynew species whichI calledCaprimulgus eleanoroe. (Plate XIII.) It is a large, dark and finelymarked nightjar, mostnearly related to an Indian form, C. monticola. Africa is rich in Caprimulgidoeand there may remain a number of rare speciesstill undiscovered. I must omit most of the smaller birds in this account, but a few may be mentioned. We found a little colonyof a plain-colored swallowat Fazogli, breedingin burrowsdug in the ground. This bird, Chelidongriseopyga, is apparentlyrare, for Butler doesnot mention it in his variouspapers on Sudanbirds, and the British Museum Catalogueonly recordedthree specimens. The burrows of these birds, which I cannot find have ever been noticed before, were someten feet long and six to ten inchesbelow the surfaceof the openplain. The nestof onewe dugout wasmade of straw,and three feet from the blind end, containingpartly fledgedyoung on January 25. Whether this bird digs its own burrow in this hard baked loessis still an open question; but I think this probable. So far as I know,only oneother swallow, Hgrundo pucheti from the Congo,nests in this manner. Its burrows(Ornis 1885, p. 587) were supposedto be thoseof animals. They were threefeet long and were found at an obtuseangle, the angleholding the nest and being at the deepestpart. We got four kinds of bee-eaters,one, the magnificentred-breasted Meropsnubicus, is the most gloriousof its kind. It is very large, with a long, pointed tail, habits like a swallowand a breast and back which seemto reflect the glory of the sunset. These birds were scarcetill we reached the Dinder River, and we lamented our Vøl•9Xl•XXI] PuILI,Irs,Birds of the Sudan. 1157 inability to shootone, for they flew very high and we never could find their roosts. One day Dr. Allen was riding alongthe road, mounted as usual on a small, gray donkey, his gun acrossthe saddle-bow. A flock cameflying over, the collectorraised his gun, fired, replacedhis gun, caughtthe bird in his lap, wrappedit up and droppedit into his bag,without the donkeyever changinghis pace or waggingan ear. I call this a goodperformance, but as a game- shootingcompanion often remarks,"They do comeeasy, some- times." I want to say a word about the indicators,or honey guides, which have caused so much comment from all African travellers. We found two kinds. The natives call them "Man6ch" and treat them to a great dealof ceremonyand a little set speech,the meaning of which we did not get. Most ornithologistsconcur, I think, in the belief that the honeyguides do not guide,but merelyattract one to honey by their presencein its neighborhood. There was one bird, however,at Mangangani,which persistentlyfollowed me about, and chatteredin an amazingmanner. I thought I never would shakehim off, and I am almost convincedthat he was follow- ing me and talking to me, too. We got ten speciesof hawks, eight of thrushes,eleven of old world warblers, seven of shrikes and bush shrikes,and eleven of ploceidsor weavers. Severalof the ploceidsare kinds seencom- monly in cages. The long tailed ParadiseWhydab, with rectrices that certainly impedeits progress,and the beautiful little Cordon- blue of aviculturalists. This little gem of bright cobalt blue, so delicate and short-livedin captivity, was everywherecommon, and associatedin little flockswith the Small Red Weaver, Lagono- stictasenegala. These little mixedflocks were most confiding, and we saw them everywhere. The ostrich, which is rare, we did not get a sight of. It, with various speciesof cranes, storks, herons and the Giant Hornbill, is protectedby law. Most of the residentBlue-Nile birdsbelong to Abyssiniantypes, andare therefore different from the White-Nile forms only a short distance away. The mammals also tend towards Abyssinian, rather than central African forms. Early workersin the easternSudan and Abyssiniawere Riippell 158 Pmnn•rs,Birds of theSudan. AprilAuk and von Heuglin, while of late years Reichenow,Neumann and others have done a great deal of systematicwork. Mr. A. L. Butler, presentSuperintendent of GamePreservation at Icdaartoum, has given us interestingpapers on Sudanbirds since1905. He is a keen observer,and has the interestsof the great game and the birds very much at heart. He has been instrumentalin many reformssuch as limiting the slaughterof the sand-grousenear Khartoum,protecting the giraffe,etc. It is hopedthat the Govern- ment will alwaysbe able to find suchmen, and that the policyof no armsfor the Arabs and largesanctuaries for the gameanimals can be continued. Were spacesufficient, I shouldlike to speakof many of the other groups. We had to leavejust when someof the birds were begin- ing to assumetheir springplumage and to sing. A little later the commonweavers change from dull brownsto orange,yellows and reds,and mustbe a gorgeoussight. The Sudan has a curiousattraction, and what it is no man can say, but as I look back I'think of two pictures; one a crispFebru- ary morningbreakfasting by candlelight and watchingthe com- plainingearnels as they are led in out of the still duskythorn trees, while the first flightsof cranesand weaversappear against a pale pink dawn. Next it is noon on a winding path amid the sweet smellingthorn bush. Nothing is heard but the tirelessscuff-scuff of my camels'feet, on the dusty path, while hornbillsflap from the branchesas we pass, and the sun blares down through the leafless trees. THE AUK, VOL.XXXI• PLATEX1V.

VIEW OF NEST No. 1 OF THE FERRUGINOUS ROUGH-LEG. SHOWING GAP TO BE CROSSED.