Rev. H. B. Tristram on the Ornithology of Northern Africa. 149 



The young bird referred to above is changing from rufous on 

 the back to black. The nuchal collar is rather conspicuous. 

 The bands are distinct on the sides of the breast, but the middle 

 of the breast and belly are cinnamomeous white; the thighs 

 deep rufous, the bands appearing round the lower part. The 

 tail is rufous, with six distinct black bands, v/hich do not show 

 on the outer rectrices. 



XVIII. — On the Ornithology of Northern Africa. By the Rev. 

 H. B. Tristram, M.A., F.L.S., C.M.Z.S. (Part IV. Lake 

 Halloula.) 



A FIVE hours' drive in the diligence from Algiers, one morning 

 in May 1856, brought me to the pretty little Arab town of 

 Koleah, on the southern edge of the Sahel range. I had started 

 early, and had abundance of time after my arrival to search out 

 a jMoorish horsedealer, from whom I engaged a steed whose 

 demeanour gave promise of more docility than spirit. The rest 

 of the afternoon was occupied in procuring provisions, wine, 

 and a pair of panniers of grass-matting, for my contemplated 

 three or four days' excursion. In the year 1856 the road, now 

 opened out by convict labour from Koleah through the forest to 

 Cherchell, had no existence, and winding horse-paths, through 

 which a pocket-compass was the most trustworthy guide, formed 

 the only access to the lake, about thirty miles distant. 



Having made my preparations, I turned in at the little hotel 

 to toss sleepless through a stifling scirocco night ; but rising 

 at 3 A.M., saddled my reluctant horse, charged the panniers, and, 

 wrapped in my burnous for protection from the sujffocating 

 wind, passed the gate of Koleah before 4 a.m. The air of the 

 hot, still night, charged with the impalpable sand of the desert, 

 felt hke the blast from a baker's oven, and augured ill for comfort 

 in the dense underwood of the forest. The sun had not yet 

 risen as I passed the tall solitary palm on the brow of the Sahel 

 which marks the old frontiers of Abd'el Kader's line after his 

 first treaty with the French, by which all west of a line drawn 

 from Blidah to the palm-tree of Koleah was conceded to the 



