THE



2 3



Hvicultural fllbagastne,


BEING THE JOURNAL OF THE


AVICULTURAL SOCIETY.



Third Series —VO L. II. — NO. 1 .—All rights reserved. NOVEMBER, 1910



SOME NOTES ON A FEW EGYPTIAN DESERT


BIRDS.


By Lady Wm. Cecil (Baroness Amherst of Hackney).


“And as I gaze, these narrow walls expand;


Before my dreaming eye

Stretches the desert, with its sifting sand,


Its unimpeded sky ! ”


Longfellow.


What a vision is conjured up by these few lines! The

Desert! vast, measureless, silent; glowing golden in the glare

of burning sun, or changing through every hue of rainbow tint

to silver-white, and purple-black in the magic of moonlight.

Always mysterious, always lonely, a world of dreams, a wonder¬

land of thought. To the traveller, perhaps, a world of terror, of

sand storm, thirst and death ! Yet here those who look for it

may discover life that is of the deepest interest; the geologist

and the naturalist might here spend years in research, and the

ornithologist find a “happy hunting ground” wherein to exercise

his pet hobby.


The bird-life in the desert is a study well worthy of

attention. How the birds live, how they find food, build their

nests, and rear their young in a land where all is sand and rock,

and rock and sand ; the herbage consisting mainly of thorny

bushes and dry hard grass and prickly scrub. After a little rain,

which falls every two or three years, for a few short weeks the

desert ‘ blossoms,’ perhaps hardly ‘ as the rose,’ but still wee

flowers and green things are brought forth, and many exquisite

little blooms, such as a tiny mignonette and miniature Bugloss

gladden the aching eyes of the tired traveller, as he trudges



