4 JOTTINGS ABOUT BIRDS. 



the Tell, a richly fertile area, wooded in parts, and 

 clothed with a varied and luxuriant vegetation. 

 From the southern slopes of the Atlas to the region 

 where all regular water supply fails, is known as 

 the Sahara, sandy, yet sufficiently fertile for 

 pastoral purposes, replete with oases of wonderful 

 beauty and almost tropic luxuriance. Beyond 

 this, again, we enter the Desert region, a rainless 

 almost waterless area of interminable sandy arid 

 wastes, destitute of vegetation except in the few 

 scattered oases, which extend in drear monotony 

 southwards to the water system of the Niger. We 

 may again very conveniently divide the central of 

 these three regions, the Sahara, into three well- 

 defined sub-regions, viz. the Hauts Plateaux, or 

 the high lands or steppes of the Atlas ; the Dayats, 

 or region where the water supply is intermit- 

 tent and inconstant; and beyond this again the 

 area of the plains. Birds in great variety find here 

 a congenial home, or a fitting refuge from the 

 winters of Europe. The rich plains and mountain 

 forests, the lakes and the vast marshes (many of 

 these, alas ! are now drained through French enter- 

 prise, and their feathered denizens banished), the 

 crags and precipices of the Atlas ; the verdant 

 oases, the bare mountain slopes, and the varied 



