146 SHORT NOTES IBIS, 91

MORTALITY OF MIGRANTS IN T H E SOUTHERN RED SEA.

Information about the movements of Palrearctic migrants in the neighbourhood of the Red Sea was summarized in Proc. 2001. SOC. Lond. (A) 108 (1938) : 14-18. It was concluded that a considerable number of migrants cross the Red Sea on a broad front, for the most part on a long slant (approximately north and south), not by the shortest crossings. I do not know of any additional information since 1938, nor of any evidence that migrants are liable to suffer a serious volume of mortality in the latitudes of the southern Red Sea. Observations made by Mr. Alastair Morrison on a voyage from Liverpool to Singapore in September 1947 ((S.S. “ Lycaon ”) are, therefore, of special interest.

Mr. Morrison writes that he left Jiddah, where the weather had been fine and hot for several days, on the afternoon of 27 September.. The next day there was no sign of bad weather of any sort and the winds were not strong, but in the evening at least one hundred buds came on board, mostly in bad shape. Most of them were Swallows and Sand-martins, and the others comprised one or two House-martins, several Yellow Wagtails, a pipit, a nightjar, several Turtle Doves, half a dozen bee-eaters and a small hawk. The bee-eaters arrived late in the dusk, roosted on the foremast and left so early the next morning that it could not be seen whether they were Merops upiatter or M. persicus. Most of the small birds came right inside the ship to roost, and were so feeble and exhausted that they had lost all fear. About half the swallows, martins and wagtails were dead by the morning and those picked up were found to be yery emaciated. The survivors mostly flew off in the course of the morning when the ship passed to the east of some islands, presumably the Hanish group.

The birds evidently came on board between the latitudes of Port Sudan and Mnssawa, and it is remarkable that there was no obvious sign of bad weather. In response to enquiry, the Meteorological Office have been good enough to examine the records of the nearest stations that seem likely to be relevant-Port Sudan and Kamaran on the Red Sea and Amman, Habbaniya and Abadan along the northern arc of the Arabian Desert (unfortunately there are no records from the interior). Nowhere during the seven days before the migrants were sighted was any “ sandstorm, gale or squall ” recorded; the nearest to it was rising dust at Abadan on 25 September, but the wind did not reach Force 6. It can only be supposed that the birds had run into a patch of bad weather somewhere in the interior of Arabia.

19 August 1948. R. E. MOREAU.

DISPLAY OF WHITE-THROATED MANAKINS CORAPIPO GUTTURALIS. The White-throated Manakin is well distributed but not very common in the

British Guiana rain forest. I have seen it more often singly than in parties, but once saw a party of half a dozen or so of both sexes feeding like tits in the undergrowth. In the field the male appears all black except for the large and conspicuous throat- patch; the female is mainly olive with no very distinctive feature.

At about 10.30 a.m. on 22 October 1936 I came across a party of White-throated Manakins in the undergrowth of heavy primary forest near Mazaruni Station, British Guiana. The foliage was too dense for me to be able to count them, but I estimated the number to be between six and a dozen; I was certain that there were four males and two females present. They were sitting on branches at heights between about 10 and 50 feet above the ground, the males frequently chasing one another, their flight almost as swift as a humming-bird’s, and with a somewhat similar whirr of the wings. Several times a male \vds seen sitting in a crouching attitude with the bill pointing