THE ELEPHANT SHREW. 



Late in the afternoon of June 20th, 1903, the 

 writer stood on the dismantled ruins of the old 

 Turkish fort at Biskra. Far away on either hand 

 stretched the African desert, a sullen expanse, dim 

 grey to the interminable horizon. Leagues of rolling 

 sand dunes, masses of rugged purplish rocks, chains 

 of salt water marshes lay afar in the darkening 

 wilderness : it was a country of savage desolation and 

 utterly wild, yet possessing in spite of all drawbacks 

 a romantic charm of its own. 



Although prosecuted under considerable diffi- 

 culties, scientific research in the Sahara has yielded 

 many interesting trophies to the labours of the 

 naturalist. Amongst larger game may be mentioned 

 the addax antelope, the bubaline hartebeest, and the 

 northern ostrich: amongst lesser quarry, bustards 

 and eazelles. A host of small creatures also flourish 

 in these remote wildernesses. Jerboa rats, long- 

 lesfgfed and nimble, course in dozens over the arid 

 plains; gerbilles — graceful counterparts of the jer- 

 boas — harbour in the sand or hop over its surface 

 like tiny kangaroos. The ugly dabb or uromastix 

 lizard, with a head like a tortoise and a tail like a 

 flattened file, haunts the dunes; the hout el erdth or 

 skink glides — a flash of bronze — through the noon- 

 day sand. The hot springs of Biskra shelter 



