Ml'. C. F. Tyrwhitt Drake un the Birds of Morocco. 15 J 



falls an easy prey to the long guns of the Arabs. These people 

 certainly show good taste in their liking for Bustard^ but as a 

 general rule they are not at all particular as to what they eat ; 

 for I know from my own experience that they delight in the flesh 

 of ichneumons, foxes, and jackals ; and, though I have never 

 seen them do so myself, I have been assured on good authority 

 that they take as kindly to Vultures, the flesh of which, say they, 

 " comforts the stomach." I heard on one occasion of seven or 

 eight Egyptian Vultures being shot in a village, the inhabitants 

 of which made a sumptuous feast off them : but all this by the 

 way. I find that the Grreat Bustard {Otis tarda) is also found 

 in Morocco, as one was shot a few years ago near Tangier ; this 

 I have on the authority of Mr. W. K. Green, British Vice- 

 Consul at Tetuan, who himself shot and skinned the bird. 



I again met with the '' Hobar " in the plains of Ducala, about 

 a day's journey from the town of Morocco. Numerous herds of 

 gazelles are not unfrequently seen in the same place. It is a 

 barren, desolate tract, where nothing seems to grow but a few 

 thorny shrubs and a kind of mimosa, forming inaccessible for- 

 tresses, in which numerous Ravens and some few Hawks build in 

 security. On the hills the white broom grows, as it does every- 

 where in this latitude — near Mogador it is almost the only 

 shrub to be seen for miles. A few sheep and goats manage to 

 pick up a living where, to all appearance, there is not sufficient 

 herbage to support life in a rabbit ; there are, however, many 

 watercourses, which, when I passed (at Easter), were dry y but 

 no doubt after rain these would produce a plentiful pasturage so 

 long as the water lasted. 



Within the walls of the town of Morocco there are numerous 

 gardens, or rather groves, of white mulberry-, olive-, citron-, 

 and other trees which in spring seem quite ahve with the gaily 

 coloured Bee-eaters and Boilers ; Turtle Doves are equally abun- 

 dant in the palm-groves and fruit-orchards outside the gates. 

 I saw here for the first and only time in the country the Barbary 

 Dove [Turtur risorius) ; the master of the fondak (or caravan- 

 serai) where I was staying had two in a cage, which he told me 

 had been taken from a nest in the palm-forest in the previous 

 spring. I never, however, saw any wild. 



