372 Rev. H. B. Tristram's Notes from Eastern Algeria. 



steal the horses, and the lion will eat Salah. So he stayed and 

 wept/^ What a truly Arab view of the case ! The very man to 

 rely on at a pinch ! I half suspected his cogitations had gone 

 further, and that he had begun to reckon how much the horses 

 and kit would fetch in piastres across the Tunisian frontier, as 

 soon as the lion had finished his meal. Not that the lion will 

 ordinarily attack a man in the daytime unless he is provoked to 

 the fray. When surprised in their lairs they invariably slink off, 

 and are with difficulty brought to bay, as my companions often 

 found to their disappointment. Soon after this adventure an old 

 jackal stood coolly waiting in our path till we came up, when I 

 quietly shot him dead from the saddle at a dozen paces. Indeed 

 this seems a favourite spot for wild beasts of all kinds, as there 

 were numerous traces of boars, and we were told that leopards 

 were very common. An hour before night-fall we reached El 

 Tarf, a Spahi outpost, where I obtained a shoe for my horse, and 

 found we had a ride of five leagues further to reach La Calle. 

 We pressed on across a plain, and after crossing the Wed Kebir 

 by a deep and somewhat dangerous ford, soon struck into the 

 high road from Bona, a good carriage-road by the side of a 

 lake, and then through a cork forest up to the edge of the little 

 town, which we reached long after dark. 



The next two days were devoted to a careful examination of 

 the vai'ious lakes which lie to the back of the frontier town of 

 French Africa. My investigation did not encourage the idea 

 of an ornithological foray on these quarters. There were Ducks 

 in plenty, but very wild, as might be anticipated where French 

 chasseurs were at hand ; and I failed to discover either Fuligula 

 rufina. Anas marmorata , or Erismatura m,ersa. Pochard, Gad- 

 wall, Mallard, Shoveller, Teal, and Nyroca were the species I 

 recognized. Herons abounded, but only Ardecs riissata and r«/- 

 lo'ides; the Great Egret, our principal desideratum, and the Glossy 

 Ibis being absent. It was pretty evident, from the frequent 

 report of fowling-pieces, that not much nidification could here be 

 conducted with comfort or safety, and so, after wading among 

 the swamps, and admiring whole morasses covered with that most 

 glorious of ferns, Osmunda regalis, whose fronds I gathered 



