I08 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



Europe ? Their heads are all to the north ; they are flying 

 low, like birds with a settled object. Less numerous, but 

 still innumerable, and with the same aim, and flying in the 

 same direction, I see a cloud of Sand Martins. At the rate 

 they are now going they will soon be decimating insect 

 life at Cairo, and hawking over the pools of El Fostat, 

 in conjunction with the Rufous -breasted Swallow and its 

 distinct English congener. But all Egyptian birds are not 

 migrants. There are the stay-at-homes, and one of these is 

 the Hooded Crow, which sits in the Sycamore-fig, announcing 

 with loud caws, to all who may be interested in the fact, 

 that she has laid her eggs ; and another is the parasitic 

 Greater spotted Cuckoo, which chuckles at the thought of 

 having added one to the number. These belong to a class 

 which is divisible into flats and sharpers ; birds who " do " 

 others, or are themselves " done." 



In the long grass the Fantail builds her gem of a nest, 

 and the Drymceca gracilis, another minute Warbler, chir- 

 rups to her young ones, " branchers " already with little 

 bodies and no tails. 



Small rodents spring into the ditches : lizards scuttle up 

 the walls of the houses ; the moving snake eyes the 

 fledgling ; and the sly fox trots away among the tobacco 

 plants. So great is the overflow of animal life, that no one 

 can fail to be struck by it. Only those can appreciate the 

 scene in its zoological aspect who are capable of discrimina- 

 ting between the many species, though all can and must, 

 listen with unmixed feelings of pleasure to the chanting of 

 the choristers, and the hum of many insects, and all must 

 feel the balmy air and fragrant luxuriance of foliage and 

 blossom, and derive enjoyment from the view before them, 

 the rock-cut tombs, the tents, the camels, the Bedouins with 

 their long guns, the latteen sails upon the river, and the 

 mountains in the hazy distance. 



I shall be pardoned if I next submit a brief companion 



