SIX months' bird collecting in EGYPT. 1 33 



were occasionally tried at them, but the Delta is too populous 

 to admit of much rifle practice. However, a fine specimen 

 was shot with the gun at Mershoom. Going up the Nile 

 we saw eighteen in two days, but very few in coming 

 down again. At Gebel-Abou-Foeder a pair seemed to 

 have a nest in the clifis. My father has shown me that, 

 according to Dr. Bree's translations from Von Heuglin, it 

 nests in the Gulf of Suez in February and April. It may 

 be, therefore, that some remain the summer on the Nile, but 

 I did not see any, to identify them, after the ist of April. 



The head of this species and the Spotted Eagle are very 

 hard to pass in skinning. 



II. Lanner Falcon, Falco lanarius, Linn.; 

 F. feldeggii, Schleg. 



I cannot say for certain if the Lanner was seen by us 

 below Cairo, but I identified it to my satisfaction at the 

 Pyramids. By the second of those mighty memorials of a 

 bygone age, my guide sprung a Quail, and an unmistakable 

 Lanner instantly dashed off in pursuit of it. The quarry 

 settled and the Falcon "waited on," but when I went up to 

 flush it again for her, she flew on to the face of the Great 

 Pyramid, but I had seen her light head, and albeit Pere- 

 grines were at that time (February i6th) still plentiful, I 

 was satisfied. 



No doubt in Egypt, as in other countries, the Arab sheiks 

 have trained their Lanners to the noble sport of falconry, 

 and their high courage has enabled them to be used for 

 larger game than their natural instincts would lead them to 

 attack. I imagine that their usual natural food is the Quail 

 when it arrives, I have sometimes, when shooting them, had 

 a Lanner dash past me like a flash of lightning, which I had 

 myself seen an instant before a mere speck in the sky. Yet 

 from that great height he had seen that one of the Quails 



