SIX MONTHS BIRD COLLECTING IN EGYrT. I4I 



and pinions which seem to be almost without motion. It 

 is the rudderhke tail which enables it to turn with such 

 consummate ease. 



During the winter they were shy, and many a cartridge 

 was expended on them in vain ; but as spring drew on and 

 tourists went, they forgot their shyness and thought about 

 making a nest. Indeed a few misguided birds take the 

 trouble to nest twice or thrice, for the noise of their young 

 bemg fed in the nest was heard in the Ezbekeeah Gardens* 

 in January. Their nests, which by April are nearly as 

 common as Crow's nests, are untidy fabrics, the chief part 

 being sticks and rags, put together anything but neatly. 

 They are generally in trees, sometimes in cliffs or on houses. 

 One of the most accessible I saw was on the tombs of the 

 Caliphs. Mr. E. C. Taylor took several on the second 

 Pyramid. I never saw any very young birds : there were 

 two in Shepheard's Hotel garden when we returned in May, 

 which had left the nest and could fly. 



I must say, to give them credit for one cleanly habit, 

 that I have seen them standing in the water and washing 

 themselves. They are often on the sand banks, whether for 

 fish or to digest their last meal, I do not know : I never 

 saw one gorged, though I have seen their crops distended 

 with offal. It is not very usual to see a great many to- 

 gether. I remember noticing a big flock in a high wind at 

 Minieh, and a still larger one of perhaps seventy on a sand- 

 bank at Siout : what they were doing unless digesting I 

 cannot guess ; they were not near together as if they had 

 found carrion, but were sitting apart at intervals, lazy and 

 quiet. But the largest congregation of all was at a place just 

 outside Cairo, not far from the citadel ; here on the i8th of 

 February, just after we had shot the bridge and Rhoda was 

 opening into view, I beheld a surprising flock of Kites, and 



° The public gardens in Cairo. (See ante.) 



