206 Dr. F. H. H. GuiWemsir A— Cijprus 



XVII. — Cyprus and its Birds in 1888. 

 By Dr. F. H. H. Guillemakd, M.A., F.Z.S.* 



Upon bidding adieu to Cyprus^ one broiling July day in 

 1887, 1 had no definite intention of returning to its, in many 

 respects, uninviting shores. But the island, as is the case 

 with other countries I have visited, has after all a certain 

 charm attaching to it, which is most strongly felt when the 

 traveller has left it, as he thinks, for good. The dust, the 

 heat, the countless insect-pests, the glare of the barren 

 gypseous soil, the wretched treelessness of the place — all 

 these ills became mitigated in my memory by the intervention 

 of time and distance ; and when our English autumn arrived, 

 with its attendant fogs and gloom, I remembered little of 

 Cyprus but the glorious freshness of its spring-time and 

 the many kind friends I had made during my wanderings 

 there. 



I had interests, too, other than those of a naturalist, which 

 tended to keep it in my mind. No one could ramble as I 

 had for months together over the countless ruins with which 

 almost every acre of it is strewn, or read the history of its 

 past greatness and the infinite vicissitudes it has experienced, 

 without wishing that something could be done to bring to 

 light the many treasures that under any other government 

 but our own would long ago have been reposing upon the 

 shelves of our National Museum. On my return to England 

 I had done my best to bring about such a result. Ultimately 

 it was decided that the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge 

 should join, under the auspices of the Hellenic Society, in 

 the work of archseological research upon the island ; and 

 before the autumn the " Cyprus Exploration Fund " had 

 sprung into existence and was in possession of sufficient money 

 to commence operations. 



And so it came about — partly in consequence of a promise 

 to assist, as far as it was possible for me to do so, in that 

 work, partly from the desire of our President that I should 

 continue my ornithological researches of the previous season — 



* See Dr. Guillemard's former article in Ibis, 1888, p. 94. 



