^i6 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



The migration which I have attempted to describe was 

 soon over, but long after the travellers had passed, we used 

 occasionally to come across a solitary, which was no doubt 

 some weakly bird which had been unable to keep up with 

 the ranks. The first of these single ones, doomed to a life 

 of celibacy, was by my note book observed on the 31st of 

 March, watching some husbandmen at work by the edge of 

 the cultivated ground. Its air bespoke a moody and 

 despondent mind. After a little judicious stalking it was 

 brought to bag, when it proved to have black beetles in its 

 throat, and locusts in its gizzard. No doubt it sighed for 

 the inundation, and the time when it should bear aloft in 

 its terrible shears the juicy frog. 



Other hermits we saw at Silsilis, Kom Ombos, Edfou, 

 Erment, and Fechn. They had settled down into their 

 summer tameness, and though cut off from their kindred, it 

 is to be hoped they found some village mosque on which 

 to perform the duties of incubation, and partners to aid 

 them in its most important functions ; but strange to say, I 

 never saw a nest in Egypt, not even at Alexandria or 

 Cairo ; yet some must remain for the summer, as I 

 saw a flock as late as June 12th, but I apprehend that 

 Storks in full vigour do not find their northern limit in 

 Egypt. 



They appear from what has been written by some authors 

 to have been met with in winter, but these may have been 

 only individuals arrested on their southward journey by 

 the same causes which stopped those we saw on their north- 

 ward course. On the 19th of February I observed the first 

 one that I am sure about, but my companions thought they 

 saw some earlier. 



Specimens pulled down the steelyard at from 5^ to 

 6| lbs. I noticed that there were no tertials or feathers 

 between the scapulars and secondaries, and that the bron- 



