. The birds of Africa, comprising all the species which occur in the Ethiopian region . tensteins Desert-Lark inhabits North Arabia andEgypt to as far south as Suakin. According to Heuglin, these Larks are resident in Egypt,N. Arabia, and range southward along the Red Sea coast,avoiding the mountains, and are generally to be met with inpairs along the borders of the cultivated land and the desert,often frequenting the caravan tracks and feeding on insects,corn, and the seeds of the desert plants. Their note is veryinsignificant, and they keep to the ground, only occasionallyperching on low bus
. The birds of Africa, comprising all the species which occur in the Ethiopian region . tensteins Desert-Lark inhabits North Arabia andEgypt to as far south as Suakin. According to Heuglin, these Larks are resident in Egypt,N. Arabia, and range southward along the Red Sea coast,avoiding the mountains, and are generally to be met with inpairs along the borders of the cultivated land and the desert,often frequenting the caravan tracks and feeding on insects,corn, and the seeds of the desert plants. Their note is veryinsignificant, and they keep to the ground, only occasionallyperching on low bushes. The type of A. deserti (Licht.) came from Upper Egypt,and this is the species which I found distributed over Egyptin suitable localities, but most abundant above the FirstCataract. They construct a neatly formed nest of grass, placedin a slight depression and sheltered by a tuft of grass or alarge stone, and lay four eggs. These are of an ashy creamcolour, obscurely marked with purplish grey and more dis-tinctly so with brown. They measure 09 inch by 06. <; pi < p;ww « S. AMMOMANES SAMHARENSIS 99 The exact range of this species is somewhat doubtful, as itseems to be entirely replaced in the Abyssinian highlands byA. saviharensis. Whether the Samhar Desert-Lark is the southern repre-sentative of A. deserti, as I believe it to be, or a local mountainform, I am unable to say, for no species of Ammomanes havebeen recorded from Shoa, and all those I have seen fromSomaliland belong to A. lusitana and A, phoenicuroides. , recorded by Mr. A. J. Cholmley from the ErbaMountains near Suakin, has, I believe, been rightly determined,and this is the most southern range, known to me, for thespecies. Ammomanes samharensis. (PI. 21, fig. 1.) Ammomanes deserti (nee Licht.), Finsch. Trans. Z. S. vii. p. 272 (1870);Blanf. Geol. and Zool. Abyss, p. 390 (1870). Type. Very similar to A. deserti, from which it differs in being darker,with the crown and mantle brown, of an ashy gre
Size: 1258px × 1985px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectbirds, bookyear1896
