56 EGYPTIAN BIRDS 



One hardly knows how to cure this cruelty, 

 for the humane nearly always rebuke the boy, 

 give him a piastre or two, and liberate the bird, 

 and pass on thinking they have done a good deed. 

 The bird can only flutter feebly away, and the boy 

 of course re-catches it and goes through the same 

 performance with the next kind-hearted, foolish 

 visitor. It is with regret I write it, but I do not 

 in the least now believe in the Egyptian's love for 

 birds, or anything other than backsheesh. Why 

 the birds are or were so universally tame is not 

 because of their kindliness, but simply because of 

 their apathy. The moment it dawns on them 

 that there is anything to be made out of birds or 

 any other lovely thing they are as brutal as the 

 very worst British hooligan. 



I have sometimes seen Bee-eaters in the ruins 

 and temples, and in this connection it is interesting 

 to recall that there is a very good representation of 

 one flying, in the celebrated series of pictures of the 

 expedition to Punt at Deir-el-Bahari, the only case 

 I can remember of a Bee-eater being so represented. 

 It is entirely insectivorous, and is one of the many 

 birds which ought, in this insect-infested country, 

 to be strictly preserved, for it is appalling to think 

 what an unbearable land this would be for us thin- 



