474 Letters, Extracts, Notices, ^c. 



coloured, and tbat the immature bird resembles the male. 

 The greatest rarity I saw in the market was a Blackbird 

 {Tardus merula), a bird very rarely met with in Egypt. A 

 few days later I saw a fine adult male Blackbird in one of 

 the beautiful gardens on the Mahmoudieh canal, which is 

 the only time I ever saw this species alive in Egypt. Alex- 

 andria j)resents a great contrast to Cairo in the absence of 

 MUvus cegypt'iiis and Corvus comix, both which species 

 swarm in the latter city. Indeed the only land- bird larger 

 than a sparrow which is often seen in Alexandria is Turtur 

 senegalensiSy which abounds, and is more numerous there 

 than it was a few years ago. 



I went on to Cairo on February 10th, and stayed there 

 five weeks. On February 15tli I took in the Ezbekiyeh 

 Gardens, close to the hotel where I was staying, two nests of 

 Milvus cegyptius, one with three eggs, the other with two, 

 I am glad to say that in neither case did the birds desert their 

 nest; and when I departed from Cairo I left both pairs 

 sitting, and only hope that they were more successful in 

 their second attempt to rear a family than in their first. 

 The usual number of eggs of Milvus cegyptius is two, and I 

 have never taken a nest with more than three eggs. 



The most noteworthy birds that I saw in the Cairo market 

 were numerous specimens of Pterocles exustus^ and two of 

 Cursorius gallicus, which is by no means a common bird in 

 Egypt. During my stay in Cairo I visited an Ostrich-farm, 

 recently established in the desert, about half a mile from 

 Matariyeh, a village five miles N.E. of Cairo. I saw there 

 Ostriches in every stage of their existence, from the newly 

 hatched chick to the oldest Ostrich in the farm, which I was 

 told was 15 years old. The enclosure of the farm was 

 divided into pens, in each of which was a male and three or 

 four females, which laid their eggs all together in a heap. 

 I do not remember seeing either male or female sitting on 

 the eggs, many of which I was told were hatched in an 

 incubator. From Cairo I went and stayed five days at Mena 

 House, a large hotel recently built on the edge of the desert, 

 at the foot of the Pyramids of Gizeh. Almost as soon as I 



I 



