224 Cruelty to Birds 



classes, and a complete indifference to the fact that 

 birds and animals have any feelings. 



When they are captured and handled they are 

 treated as if they were devoid of any possibility of 

 suffering. Riding through the fields one day near 

 Minieh, on the banks of the Nile, an Arab came up to 

 us with a wretched sparrow, whose wings had appar- 

 ently been literally torn from its body, leaving nothing 

 but two mangled stumps, and the poor little bird was 

 tightly tied up with a piece of string. 



The only way to impress its captor with the cruelty 

 of the act was to administer some really hard whacks 

 across his shoulder-blades with a stick, which I very 

 promptly did, upon which he retreated at a consider- 

 ably quicker pace than he had advanced. But I 

 gave chase on my donkey, and didn't let him off 

 easily. 



Had I gently conversed with him on the subject, 

 he would only have grinned, and have written me 

 down an ass ! 



At Luxor it was noised abroad that I was wishing 

 to rear up a brood of hoopoes. 



Consequently other birds were brought to the 

 Dahabeah ; amongst them a pair of the lovely little 

 green bee-eaters (Merops viridis), which are so often to 

 be seen at that part of the Nile, and towards Assouan, 

 either sitting upon the telegraph wires, from which 

 they dart off to catch flies and other winged insects, 

 returning to their perch to devour them, or else amongst 

 the bushes and palm trees of the river's banks or gardens 

 of houses. 



