SIX MONTHS BIRD COLLECTING IN EGYPT. 101 



never observed any. Going along the edge of a field one 

 day in the Delta, I met three large Ichneumons following 

 one another up a rut, their backs appearing and disappear- 

 ing as the waving corn — then about six inches high — was 

 bent down by the wind. On several occasions we came 

 upon these creatures — always unexpectedly, which was 

 probably why we never shot one. At Assouan I bought 

 a Monkey's skin, probably brought from Soudan. At the 

 Faioum a Hedgehog was offered to us. 



Bats. "Woofwat." 



Egypt with its rock-cut tombs and temples, is a great 

 country for Bats. As I did not know their names, I could- 

 only distinguish them by size. There was one very small 

 species, smaller than our Pipistrelle ; another somewhat 

 larger went in flocks. Perhaps this is the species which 

 attacks the Palms ; I was told at Damietta that they 

 suffered greatly, and that men were employed to search out 

 the Bats systematically and kill them. In a tomb at Siout 

 I saw about 200 of the largest size, and shot a male and 

 female ; the former, which was the larger, measured twenty- 

 two inches from tip to tip. I also saw hundreds of Long- 

 tailed Bats go down a hole at Beni Hassen. 



In the square, one afternoon in June, at Alexandria, there 

 were many which had come out before their usual hour, and 

 they were flying so low that the coachmen were hitting at 

 them with their whips. 



Fish. 



The fish of the Nile are poor and unpalatable, though 

 they grow to a large size. I saw one enormous creature 

 dead at Girgeh ; it must have weighed 100 pounds. Two 

 Griffons were watching its decomposition with an appearance 



