Rev. H. B. Tristram^s Notes from Eastern Algeria. 363 



from whose fissures and ledges many a mountain shrub and tree 

 stretched forth and partially covered the nakedness of the rocks. 

 Carefully peering over the top, we soon espied, at a distance of 

 some 50 feet below us, the cumbrous heap of sticks which gene- 

 rally serves the Vulture for a nest, but were dismayed to see, 

 instead of an egg, an unfledged downy squab. Had we come 

 too late for nesting ? It was an ominous disappointment to 

 commence with. However, " H y a de plus encore," cries our 

 Frenchman, and we soon made out a second nest a little lower 

 down the cliff. Alarmed by the falling of a stone, the parent bird 

 deliberately rises, slowly stretches her wings, and, with two or 

 three majestic wavings of her pinions, leaves a single egg dis- 

 closed to view. Having discovered a narrow ledge by which the 

 nest may be reached, Simpson boldly descends, and reverentially 

 handles the first Griffon^s egg he had ever seen in situ. But 

 calling out to us that he will wait till the complement has been 

 laid, he clambers up to the top again. He has scarcely arrived 

 there when the mother returns, and quietly sailing in, lets her- 

 self drop on the edge of the nest. Here she pauses for a 

 minute or two, grotesquely turns her neck and squints at her 

 beloved egg, first with one eye, then with the other. Next she 

 snifi's at it, turns it over and over, and with fond admiration, 

 taking another look, seats herself down on it. It must be hard 

 set, we remark ; and Simpson, resigning hopes of any additional 

 booty, determines to descend again and secure his prize. He 

 had almost reached the nest before the parent bird would quit it ; 

 the egg proved to have been incubated for some time, and was 

 the best-marked Griffon^s we obtained. 



Two days after this capture I set out for La Calle, a distance 

 of ninety miles. I was lightly equipped, and carried provisions 

 and forage but for one day, as with money in the purse we were not 

 likely to starve. Of our three Arab servants, Salah, an ex-Spahi, 

 accompanied me on the second horse, — Mohammed, our best 

 climber, being left to make himself useful about the cliffs with 

 Salvin, while Bilgassem, our trusty Tunisian, was the only one 

 capable of conducting Simpson safely through the independent 

 tribes of the south. Our route lay by the Hammam Weled Zeid, 

 so named from some hot sulphureous springs, where baths 



