EGYPT NEWBEKRY 439 



states that tracks of the ostrich were frequently seen, and he noted 

 also that the bird sometimes appeared in the neighborhood of the 

 Wadi Natrun/o Qeoffroy Saint-Hilaire in 1799 reported that it was 

 then common in the mountains southwest of Alexandria.'^ In 1837 

 Lord Lindsay saw the ostrich near Esneh/- but the northern limit of 

 the bird is now very much further south. The lion is mentioned by 

 Sonnini at the end of the eighteenth century as one of the larger 

 carnivora which then approached the confines of Egypt, but did not 

 long remain in the country. 



Now the appearance of all these animals in Egypt, and in its 

 bordering deserts in dynastic times presupposes that the vegetation 

 of the wadies was much more abundant then than now, and this again 

 presupposes a greater rainfall than we find at present. The dis- 

 appearance of the dynastic fauna is not, however, entirely due to the 

 change in climatic conditions. The Arabs have a saying that it was 

 the camel that drove the lion out of Egypt, and this is doubtless 

 true. The lion depends mainly on the antelope tribe for its food 

 supply. The antelopes, on the other hand, depend for their sus- 

 tenance on herbage and grass, and this has been consumed to a great 

 extent by the camels, which, since Arab times, have been bred in 

 great numbers in the Arabian and Nubian Deserts. It is certain that 

 the advent of the camel was a factor in driving southward many 

 of the wild animals that were at one time so common in Egypt, but 

 are now characteristic of the Ethiopian region. 



The characteristic wild trees of the dynastic flora of Egypt, as we 

 know from the remains of them that have been found in the ancient 

 tombs, were the heglik {Balanites cngytiaca), the seyal {Acacia 

 seyal), the sunt {Acacia nilotica), the tamarisk {Tamarix nilotica), 

 the nebak {Zizyphus spina-Christi), the sycamore-fig {Ficus syco- 

 morus)' and the moringa {Moringa aptera). The dom palm {Hy- 

 pJmroe thehaica) and the Dellach palm {H. argun) were also com- 

 mon. The heglik does not now grow wild north of Aswan, and of 

 the other trees, only the sunt and the tamarisk are really common in 

 the Lower Nile Valley. All these trees, however, now grow in 

 abundance in the region north of the Atbara, and it is here, in what is 

 called the Taka country, that we find also the fauna that was once 

 so abundant in more northerly regions. 



But if the fauna and flora of the Arabian and Libyan Deserts in 

 dynastic times approached more closely to that now seen in the Taka 

 country, we have to go further south again for the earliest pre- 

 dynastic fauna and flora of the Lower Nile Valley. This predynastic 

 fauna is particularly interesting, because, in addition to several of 



-" W. G. Browne, Travels in Africa, &c. 

 ^ M6m. sur TEgypte, Vol. I, p. 79. 

 "Letters on Egypt, &c., ed. 1S66, p. 107. 



