THE ALGERIAN SAHARA. 2$ 



awful. The mayor did me the honour to write " my descrip- 

 tion." From him I obtained the gratifying information that 

 my hair was chestnut, my nose regular, my beard fair, 

 my chin short, my eyes brown, and my complexion red ! ! 



The next day I left early for Mustapha to explore the lanes 

 there. This beautiful suburb is the Richmond of Algiers, 

 and the favoured resort of the best families. My first shot 

 was at a female Black -headed Warbler. Instead of slate 

 colour as in the cock, the back was brown, and the head no 

 darker than a Lesser Whitethroat's. Males of this species 

 would appear to preponderate. After crossing several 

 fields, and losing a specimen of Chlorospiza aiirantiiventris, 

 the interesting Algerian representative of our Greenfinch,* 

 from which it can scarcely be said to be distinct, I came to 

 a wooded valley, where I had a couple of shots at an 

 Ichneuman. I missed him, and never had a chance of 

 getting another. Here I fell in with a Serin (Scrinus 

 Jiortuloriiin), singing merrily even then, at a period when 

 winter had hushed for a time the notes of most of its 

 congeners. One of the rarer British birds, it may be dis- 

 tinguished at a glance from the hen Siskin, the only one 

 on the list with which it could be confounded, by its thicker 

 beak. Trying to scramble up some sandrocks I disturbed 

 a dozing Barn Owl, which, being brought to bag, proved a 

 very spotted specimen, with the bars of the tail more defined 

 than in English examples. The next bird was a Cirl 

 Bunting (Euibcri::a cirliis), not an uncommon species in 

 Algeria. Then leaving the valley I gradually worked my 

 way home by the sea shore, and the only bird I procured 

 was the White Wagtail (JHotacilla alba), but the blue bay 

 beneath me, and the transcendent scene, made up for the 

 small bag, and I returned well satisfied with my walk. 



• In the summer of 1871, I saw an Algerian Greenfinch in the 

 Zoological Gardens, supposed to be eight years old. 



