SIX MONTHS BIRD COLLECTING IN EGYPT. 219 



or the Tombs of the Kings. It was standing near some 

 Bufif-backs. The next day we found it again in exactly the 

 same place, but without the Buff-backs. When frightened 

 by being shot at, it mounted very high, flying in circles 

 with its neck extended. 



At Damietta I was offered a pair which had been shot 

 the previous spring. I took the larger and brighter one of 

 the two, which I presume was the male. It is a fine bird, 

 but not so good as an Alexandrian one of Mr. Allan's 

 which I lately saw on sale at Mr. Gerrard's, and which may 

 be the specimen referred to in the "Ibis" for 1863, p. 34. 

 I saw another Alexandrian example at Mr. Mayers'. 



Some remarks will be found about the Sacred Ibis (which 

 we never met with) in chapter VI. 



182. Flamingo, Phcenicoptcrus aiitiqnorum, Tem. ; 

 " Bachirroch," or " Basharoos." 



High praise has been lavished on the Flamingo, and the 

 untravelled Englishman has always been taught that this is 

 " the bird of all birds," and that nothing in nature is so 

 surpassingly beautiful ; while all writers have vied with one 

 another in finding epithets to describe the spectacle of the 

 pink tints of a band of them rising into the air ''an animated 

 rosy cloud." Having at last realised the ardent wish to 

 see them, which I have ever had from childhood, I am bold 

 to say that on the whole they are not overrated — their 

 vaunted splendour is not a myth but a real thing, and 

 nothing will ever dispel from my memory the feelings with 

 which I first saw Flamingos. It needs not the halo of 

 Afric's sun to illumine a splendour to which the gilded birds 

 of the tropics must yield the palm. Marshalled, they stand 

 in one long glittering line ; some of them apparently with 

 no head ; others with but one leg ; others with raised wing 



