SIX months' bird collecting in EGYPT. 121 



the size of life, and are painted, together with four White- 

 fronted Geese, upon a slab which was found by the gentle- 

 man who has amassed this unrivalled collection, at Meydoun. 

 They are supposed to be older than the Pyramids themselves. 

 They are the best executed, and by far the most life-like 

 of any bird-pictures that I saw in Egypt. The White- 

 fronted Geese are not adult, having but little or no black 

 barring on the under surface ; and curiously it was the same 

 with those which we got, which looks as if the species was 

 longer in arriving at maturity than in England. 



The only other bird in the museum which calls for re- 

 mark, though there are many other things of the highest 

 interest, is an exquisite Sacred Ibis, very fresh and very 

 faithful, which has been drawn, not from the conventional 

 pattern of the tombs, but from nature. In the temple at 

 Edfoo there is a delineation (uncoloured of course) most 

 wonderfully like a Bustard, a species included by Wilkinson 

 with a query ; and in the last tomb but one at Beni Hassan 

 it is easy to make out the Spoonbill, the Barn Owl, the 

 Masked Shrike, and sundry others. No one, naturalist or 

 not, ought to go by this grotto without visiting the two 

 end tombs, though the pictures have been shamefully 

 defaced. The unrivalled cartoons in the tombs of the kings, 

 the beautiful temple of Phils, and many other tombs and 

 temples have been almost spoilt by the selfish cupidity and 

 crass ignorance of a class of visitors who are an unmitigated 

 disgrace to whatever nation they belong to. The Viceroy 

 sees and knows that this is going on, and yet he provides 

 no custodian for any of these places except Dendera. 



To return to the birds which occur in the sculptures. Sir 

 Gardner Wilkinson gives a list, with a facsimile of outlines, 

 in his " Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians," 

 among which one can recognise the Lesser Ring Dotterel, 

 Spurvvinged Plover (a very characteristic Egyptian bird), 



