198 EGYPTIAN BIRDS 



species shot than ever before. The wily native 

 who stalks up and down outside hotels with a gun 

 slung over his shoulder, and seizes on unwary new- 

 comers with great promises of apocryphal quail- 

 and snipe-shooting, frequently— so that his patron 

 shall not come home without any bag at all — sug- 

 gests shooting every poor inoffensive bird within 

 range. That done, the poor Kite or Gull is borne 

 home, and laid out on the hotel steps for the 

 further honour, glory, and kudos of the native 

 shekarry. 



It should always be remembered that the 

 immature birds of most species differ materially 

 from the adult : this is the case with all the Gulls, 

 and, I own, makes their identification a matter of 

 considerable difficulty. In the young there is no 

 pure white and pearly grey plumage, but they are 

 dirty-coloured, brown-spotted, rather uninterest- 

 ing-looking birds, but as they have just as ravenous 

 an appetite as their parents, and as they satisfy 

 that appetite with the filth that is thrown out of a 

 scavenger's basket, they are fully as useful as the 

 more attractively plumaged adults. Where they 

 can get it, they like fish before anything, be it the 

 sprat of the clear ocean water, or the sweepings of the 

 fish-market. At Damietta, where there is a great 



