Page:Ibis Series 10 Volume 5 1917.djvu/43

 THE IBIS.

TENTH SERIES.

Vol. V. No. 1. JANTARY 1917.

T,—Notes on birds observed at Erzerum. By P. J. C. McGkegor, M.B.O.U., lately H.M. Consul for Palestine.

The following list of birds observed at Erzerum is compiled from a diary kept regularly during a residence in that town from January 1910 to April 1912, and is supplemented by a fcNv notes regarding the times of arrival and departure of some species.

It should be stated at the outset that the list is necessarily far from complete, as, in addition to the limitations imposed by my ordinary duties, it was found impossiljle to make a systematic exploration of the Kara Su marshes, which is precisely the part of the Erzerum plateau where bird-life is probably most abundant. The notes relate, in fact, almost exclusively to the birds to be met with in a radius of five or six miles from the town itself, and they are offered, to the reader merely on account of the comparative meagreness of previous observations in this region.

Erzerum is situated at a height of about 6100 feet on the southern side of the vast and desolate plain watered by the Kara Su, an affluent of the Euphrates. It is about 160 miles in a direct line from Trebizoud and 120 miles from Kars. To the north the plain is bounded by lofty mountains, the