In the Bayuda Desert 385 
I was determined to trap the old bird as a proof of the unusual 
circumstances attending her nesting. I had with me a hard-boiled 
egg. It did not take long, with the aid of my sketching appliances, 
to colour this egg with a judicious mixture of vandyke brown and 
light red. Then, climbling up to the tree and noting on which side 
of the nest the bird entered, I placed my trap near the edge and 
the hen’s egg in the centre of it. 
After lying in ambush under a clump of bright cytisus for 
exactly twenty-five minutes, the Neophron returned and alighting 
on the bough, as before, walked in and sprang the trap, which 
held her securely by one hind-toe, and she fell to the ground. 
Throwing my jacket over her, she was soon bound captive and 
conveyed to the Rock. Here I secured her ina “ falconer’s brace ” 
and she waddled about for some days and fed heartily on anything 
she could get, but her presence was not appreciated in the 
Regiment and after a few days interesting study of her pretty 
ways I removed the brace and let her go, none the worse for 
her brief confinement. 
There is a peculiarity about the egg of the Egyptian Vulture 
which is seldom met with in the case of other birds’ eggs. The 
colouring, especially that of newly-laid eggs, is of so superficial a 
nature as to come off easily. After a severe climb on a hot day 
I have more than once damaged an egg by taking it up in my 
warm hand and [| have a peculiarly richly marked egg now in my 
collection which shows the places where my perspiring fingers 
gripped it when engaged in blowing it, nigh thirty years ago. 
There is something peculiarly unbirdlike and uncanny in the 
general appearance of these birds and also in their movements on 
the ground. I have a lively recollection of their habits and 
customs when in the Soudan in 1885. About a month after the 
battle of Abu Klea I was ordered to make a sketch of the place 
where our square had received the onslaught of the Arabs. The 
25) 
