THE ALGERIAN SAHARA, 29 



here. Monsieur Jeannot, ornithologist, Hotel du Mazagram, 

 showed me a pair killed with ball in the plain of Metidja. 

 About April he told me some of the cattle generally die, 

 and when the hot weather has made them partly putrid, a 

 score or more of these Vultures will come from the moun- 

 tains to feed on them, and in this way they are occasionally 

 obtained. I did not get one then, but I bought a ragged 

 skin (nearly adult) of a Zouave at Laghouat, which has 

 since been made presentable by Mr. Burton, of Wardour 

 Street. 



At a wood outside the village, as I was sitting on a 

 little bridge, I saw an old Jackal quietly coming up the 

 ditch at a slow swing trot. I watched him with a binocular- 

 glass until he was within twenty-five yards, when probably 

 scenting me, he leapt into the wood. 



On the 26th I returned to Algiers, and on the ist of 

 March I made my start for the Great Desert, having laid 

 in a good stock of things for the journey, including a 

 sovereign's worth of alcohol for preserving reptiles. By 

 train to Blida, and by "diligence" to Medea along a first- 

 rate French road, is the route, passing through the famed 

 gorge of the Chiffa. Here I stopped at the " Ruisseau des 

 Singes" aiibcrgc, where Canon Tristram tried in vain to 

 obtain accommodation, and saw exactly the same species 

 of birds as he saw, ("The Great Sahara," p. 33) including 

 the Blue Thrush (PctrocossypJiiis cyanens). I did not obtain 

 a specimen of it, for I had no opportunity of using a gun, 

 but I bought a female in winter plumage at Algiers. I 

 never saw it again in my Algerian travels, nor did I ever 

 come across the Rock Thrush (Moiiticola saxatilis). 



There are a good many Monkeys on the beetling sides 

 of this verdant, rocky, pass. Two at the " auberge " ap- 

 peared to be the same sort as I saw at Gibraltar. The 

 Barbary Ape I believe they are called. 

 , The Medea road passes through a line of forest country. 



