( 458 ) 



as in 190S. The high monntains in the Kabylie and the Little Atlas were deeply 

 covered with snow, and winter sports were being indnlged iu at Les Glacieres, 

 Blidah. 



On the 28th we left for El Kantara, which wo found rather barer and still 

 drier than before, owing to the dronght and the terrible devastation of the locusts 

 the year before, which had lasted up to July and locally even to August. We witnessed 

 it in March and April I'.ios near Biskra. Locnsts were then seen everywhere. We 

 have seen the air so thick with them that one could not take aim at Alpine 

 Swifts flying overhead ; we saw them descending on a cornfield, which immediately 

 began to sink down visibly until it had almost entirely disappeared ; and once, 

 near El Kantara, it looked as if the mountain-side began to move when they 

 rose from a hill-slope. Along the railway from Batna northwards, and later on 

 from Algiers to Blidah, clouds upon clouds rose before the engine, and all one 

 could do was to wonder that any green plants remained at all. 



We did our best to collect the birds of the surroundings of El Kantara as 

 far as the Djebel Metlili, with its picturesque gorge of Tilatou (PI. XVIII., 

 top). The greatest surprise was the discovery of Tree-creepers. In the extensive 

 date-palm plantations south of the gorge of El Kantara Tree-creepers are found, 

 freiinenting the stems of the palms, fig-trees, apricots and vines. Whoever would 

 have imagined this bird here, and still more that it should be the same as that 

 found iu the pine woods of the Atlas Mountains near Batna, Blidah, and other 

 places ? — yet we cannot see any ditference. 



On March 11 we went to Biskra, whence we made excursions to the mountains, 

 to Zaatcha and Tolga, and to Onmash, but much of our time was taken up with 

 preparations for our journey to the south. 



On March 2.3 we left Biskra with a caravan of sixteen camels and nine 

 mules, and accompanied iiy our friend Dr. Nissen of Algiers. 



It was a fine, sunny day. Ajjus mun'/uis /jre/imori/m and Apus nielba were 

 passing northwards ; and near Bordj Saada, sitting on the telegraph wires and 

 tamarisk bushes which cover the plain of Mouleina between Bordj Saada and 

 Biskra, the first ifprops j/rrgieits c/'ri/.iocf /■<_■/<■■< were seen. We travelled as far 

 as Bir Djefair, where we camped near a well with excellent water — the only 

 really good one on the road to Touggourt. 



The second day we travelled only as far as Bordj (Jhegga, where camp was 

 pitched for the second time (see text-figure) ; and in the evening we were visited 

 by a heavy sandstorm, which raged nearly until midnight. After leaving Bordj 

 Saada the tamarisk bushes disappear and a wide sandy plain covered with innumer- 

 able stones extends to far beyond Bordj Chegga, where the sand begins to prevail 

 more and more. The sandy plain, however, is not smooth aud even, but covered 

 with countless little sand-hills, the nucleus of which is or has been in each case 

 a bush of Limoniastrum, Salsola, or another plant. Each isolated plant arrests 

 the sand that flies across the plain with every wind — aud winds are frequent — 

 and a miniature dune is formed ; the plant is partly protected by the surrounding 

 sand, but the latter runs down from the top and threatens to sutfocate the i)lant, 

 so that it strives for air and grows upwards, dying oif at the lower end. Thus 

 the hillock grows and grow.-*, and is crowned with a [ilaut, until the latter dies 

 off and the little mountain remains. These sandhills, hardened more and more 

 in the course of time, form the centres of all the animal life except some of 

 the birds. In these hillocks a rodent. Mo tones getulus, the Djerd of the Arabs, 



