XVII. 

 A DAY WITH THE BARBARY PARTRIDGES. 



SPRINGTIME in Algeria ! Not the season of fogs and 

 frost, dull grey skies and falling showers, as we know it 

 in England, but brilliantly glorious weather, a bright 

 sun and a cloudless sky, balmy air and temperature 

 almost as high as a northern midsummer. This is at 

 the base of the Aures Mountains, but further south still, 

 beyond the Tell and its cultivation in the desert fast- 

 nesses of the lonely Sahara, the heat is still greater and 

 we are glad to take refuge under the cool date palms 

 and orange groves in the delicious oases that stud this 

 sandy waste. But our quarry is not of the Desert, 

 although plenty of furred and feathered game will be 

 found there to reward the venturesome sportsman 

 Sand Grouse, Bustard, Courser ; timid gazelle, antelope* 

 and bubale (the largest of its order in Northern Africa) ; 

 whilst in the mountains wild sheep abound. If he 

 cares to venture further south into the Desert and enter 

 the country of the warlike Toureg, the panther, the 

 cheetah, and the booted lynx will furnish him with 



