from Morocco and the Great Atlas. 197 



We started too late in the year : all through the plains it 

 was dead summer, everything was absolutely baked up, and 

 the breediug-season was practically over. The birds were 

 silent and moulting, and the heat at times was very intense — 

 facts which applied even to the mountains so far as bird-life 

 was concerned, though I was in good time for butterflies on 

 the very high ground. 



The country between Tangier and Rabat has been so well 

 worked, and so much has been written about it, that I do not 

 propose to treat of it in the following account. The route I 

 took was inland, and really most interesting; but beyond the 

 occurrence of the White-shouldered Imperial Eagle in the 

 great plain-swamps of the Wad-li Koos I do not remember 

 anything of special interest until we came to the breeding- 

 grounds of the " Bald Ibis " (Comatibis eremitu) in the Sallee 

 cliffs, just north of Rabat, although we found an "Arabian 

 Bustard" (Eupodotis arabs) floating, dead, in the Seboo at 

 Mehedia. The Bald Ibis breeds abundantly in the cliffs, each 

 bay being occupied by many pairs, and most available sites 

 being taken up ; the nests were often very close together, 

 some ledges being quite covered with them, so that they 

 touched each other. They were rather small and built of 

 dry weeds, while almost all of them contained nearly full- 

 grown young, though many birds of the year were on the 

 wing. I saw a pale green, apparently addled, egg in one 

 nest, and picked up some pale green egg-shells on the beach 

 beneath the cliffs. The breeding-season must be very early, 

 as on May 20th I shot a full-grown young bird on the wing. 

 The parents were very wild at the nest, and shewed no appa- 

 rent solicitude for their progeny. The stomachs of those we 

 examined contained locusts, scorpions, and large centipedes. 

 The majority of the adults pass over into the Forest of 

 Marmora to feed. I met with this bird again at intervals 

 throughout Morocco, and saw a colony breeding in a clift' 

 over the Wad Moorbey at Oolad Lasara, close upon 200 miles 

 from the sea. 



The whole of the country passed through, and almost all 

 that from Rabat to Morocco city, was cursed by a plague of 



