Mr. C. F. Tyrwhitt Drake on the Birds of Morocco. 149 



spears tipped with iron. When a fish is seen, or an eel begins 

 to bubble, the boatman throws in a bundle of six or seven of 

 these spears, one of which is almost certain to strike the fish ; 

 and if this seems a large one, other spears are driven in close to 

 the first till the prey is secured. 



The numbers of wild fowl on this lake are wonderful; the 

 water seems alive and quite black with them, while the noise 

 they make in rising sounds like a heavy surf breaking on a 

 pebbly beach. Few of these birds, however, according to the 

 account of the Arabs, remain to breed : Widgeon, common 

 Wild Ducks, and Coots of both species are the most abundant ; 

 but the Ruddy Shell-drake is not uncommon, as well as the 

 Glossy Ibis, Herons, and Bitterns. 



The districts where the Lesser Kestrel is found in this country 

 are most curiously limited : the only reason 1 am able to give 

 for this is that they seem to prefer a comparatively level country ; 

 in fact I never found them in the mountainous parts except at 

 Tangier, and then only during the March migration ; but at 

 Laraiche, which is about sixty miles along the coast to the 

 west of Tangier, they are not only found in summer, but they 

 stay the whole year round and breed there. When 1 travelled 

 down the coast I found them at every town and kasba that I 

 passed, sometimes on the coast, sometimes thirty or forty miles 

 inland; this continued till I came to Mazagan, where there 

 were numbers ; and I saw them continually till I came to the 

 village of Sidi Rahal, which lies about sixty miles south by east 

 of Mazagan, on the road to Morocco. I never afterwards saw 

 them, whether at Morocco, Mogador, or Safi. By this it will 

 be seen that they are limited to a district extending about two 

 hundred miles along the coast and some forty to sixty inland. 

 They live in the holes and crevices with which every Moorish 

 wall is so abundantly supplied, in perfect harmony with the 

 Sardinian Starling, which has similar tastes. In the early dawn 

 and just before sunset they may be seen sitting on the walls in 

 rows, often forty or fifty together. In the day-time they fly 

 together in small flocks of from five to twenty, feeding chiefly 

 on insects which they catch on the wing, so that many of their 



