178 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



fellaheen, who bear the mess and the fleas therein en- 

 gendered with Oriental stolidity. The cote consists of 

 numerous pots, a foot or so in diameter, which are let in, one 

 above the other, with little round apertures for the pigeons 

 to go in at. Branches are stuck into the masonry all round 

 for the pigeons to perch upon. In Upper Egypt the 

 pigeon houses are square and not generally domed. In 

 Lower Egypt they are quite different, some of them being 

 like ant-hills with the tops of the cone shaved off; but see 

 Mr. Fairholt's remarks in "Up the Nile," pp. 112 — 120. 



Rock Pigeons have been so brought under domestication 

 in many countries that it is hard to say which are really 

 wild ones, and nowhere more so than in Egypt. Even 

 when we saw them in cliffs away from houses, at Abou-fceder 

 and Gebel-El-Thayr, there were dark birds of domestic 

 origin among them. At Abou-fffider, on the 3rd of May, 

 there may have been thirty pairs scattered along the base of 

 the cliff, of which I should think at least ten pairs consisted 

 of one mottled bird, and one Rock or Schimper's. There 

 w'as even one pale fawn-coloured bird paired with a Schim- 

 per's. The way in which they settle on the water to drink — 

 like Gulls — has been remarked.* They seem to drink far 

 more than other birds. All day, from every village, streams 

 of them are passing to and returning from the nearest sand- 

 bank. They go to roost early. The young are capital, 

 done spatch-cock fashion, and the old make good soup. I 

 never heard any objection made to shooting them except in 

 the Delta — where they are much less numerous — at a time 

 when they had young. 



• A writer in the "Field" newspaper (June 26th, 1875) narrates an 

 instance of a Wood-Pigeon settling to drink, but it alighted on the 

 water with outspread wings, which I never saw any of the Egyptian 

 Pig^eons do. 



