THE PARASITIC KITE 31 



in this is the secret of its privileged position ; 

 unmolested even in the busiest haunts of men, 

 secure in crowded city or up-country village, its 

 services as scavenger are invaluable, and when 

 every other bird has fled it never for a day quits 

 its post or ceases its labours. 



We will spare the reader a detailed menu of 

 this omnivorous bird, but all who visit Egypt 

 ought to bless it, as until some enlightened system 

 of sanitation is adopted, this bird, almost unaided, 

 makes the land possible to live in, or to be visited 

 with any safety or pleasure. If it were exterminated 

 as the Kites have been in Great Britain, it is almost 

 impossible to exaggerate what would be the dire 

 results to the health of the newcomers to this 

 old Eastern country. Mercifully there seems no 

 sort of chance of its numbers decreasing. Indeed, 

 in 1908 I saw behind the New Winter Palace 

 Hotel at Luxor, a flock which certainly ran into 

 hundreds ; two dead donkeys thrown out behind 

 the walls of the Hotel grounds were the cause of 

 this vast congregation. They never leave a shred of 

 anything more than the bones, picked as clean and 

 white as the paper this is printed on ; they tidy it 

 all up, and for days after the main body of birds 

 have left, a stray bird or two comes sweeping down 



