160 Rev. H. B. Tristram on the 



There remain then but 7 species undoubtedly and peculiarly 

 North African; and these, with the very interesting excep- 

 tions of Aquila ncevio'ides and the exquisite little Ruticilla 

 moussieri, all have closely allied European cousins, whose place 

 they supply in the Algerian economy. Is it too much to affirm 

 that there is not a district in Europe of equal extent which does 

 not present at least as great a number of peculiar forms ? It 

 is fair to admit that some of the habitual denizens of Algeria 

 obtain a place in the European catalogues on questionable au- 

 thority, or rather, I should say, from the occurrence of some too 

 restless wanderer far from his native haunts, as, e. g., Elanus 

 melanopterus. Little wot these foolish stragglers of the destruc- 

 tion they bring upon their race by the transgression of Nature's 

 limits ! Once out of bounds, and caught on European soil, they 

 are noted in the price catalogue of every 'marchand des oiseaux^ 

 throughout the Continent ; and their skins and eggs are indis- 

 pensable to the drawers and cabinets of German and French 

 collectors. As in England the science of natural history is 

 disgraced by pretenders and their abettors, who have the un- 

 manly nerve to draw the trigger against the last Eagle of a dis- 

 trict, to sneak for days in ambush against a Hoopoe, or desolate 

 the last resting-place of some historic Peregrines, so the cata- 

 logues of Paris, of Copenhagen, and of Hamburg tell too plainly 

 of the efforts made for the most sordid purposes to swell the 

 list of European species*. 



* I may remark, in passing, that the French dealers appear to consider 

 Algeria as, ornithologically, a province of Southern Spain. I have been 

 amused by the rich stores they can produce of birds and eggs from Anda- 

 lusia, which, though veiy scarce there, are abundant in the more accessible 

 Algeria. In one shop in Paris I saw some very fine eggs of Gypaetus, 

 which I was assured had been taken in the Pyrenees, but which had upon 

 them the private mark of a certain Algerian collector with whom I was 

 well acquainted. Skins of Ixos obscurus, &c., all labelled from the south 

 of Spain, bore a most remarkable resemblance to the (to me) familiar pre- 

 parations of this gentleman, whom I had assisted in packing a box for 

 Paris. 



In the summer of 1856 I was in the habit of employing the boat and 

 local knowledge of a professional chasseur on an Algerian lake. This man 

 used to send boxes of eggs to another Paris dealer. His collections were 

 never named, for he knew only the provincial appellations of the birds. I 



