THE DESERT BULLFINCH 87 



But if only people would walk — and I can see no 

 earthly reason why they shouldn't, they probably 

 would at home — they would see such a wealth of 

 charming pictures of bird-life that they would be 

 well rewarded, As it is I have sometimes asked 

 friends if they had noticed the extraordinary 

 number of Wagtails, or whatever bird was passing 

 by on its migration at the time, and have been 

 astonished to find they had seen none, when 

 sometimes the ground has been literally covered 

 with them. But no, they go clanging and jolting 

 along, and I suppose do really see nothing. 



At Assuan among the sand and rocks I have seen 

 quite wonderfully brilliant male birds sitting sing- 

 ing something almost worthy to be called a song, 

 — the ordinary sound is this rather monotonous 

 single note-call. Its food is distinctly hard food, 

 as we say of a cage-bird, and it spares no growing 

 crop — maize, grass, mustard, corn, all come alike 

 to it — but with this bird, as with many others, 

 one does wonder how they support existence 

 in the arid, plantless deserts, for you see them 

 quite commonly there, as well as on cultivated 

 ground. I have seen them in English bird-fanciers' 

 shops, but have no knowledge as to whether they 

 are good cage-birds ; the one thing, however, which 



