THE DESERTS 27 



Nor are gazelles the sole denizens of the desert. Those 

 barren tracts they share with quite a select little coterie, 

 both of birds and beasts. There are hares of two species, 1 

 jackals (Canis anthus\ and foxes that closely resemble our 

 British reynard. The single specimen secured, however 

 (and presumably all the rest), belonged to the greyer, 

 longer-limbed and long-eared desert-fox, Vulpes famelicus ; 

 and we also met with that pretty miniature fox, the fennec 

 ( Vulpes zerda\ z besides jerbilles and jerboas and sundry 

 small creatures whose presence one only learns, in the 

 first instance, by noting delicate traceries of tiny foot- 

 prints on the sand. These subterraneans are hardly 

 less difficult to secure than are the fleet-footed gazelles 

 of the open desert; a few, nevertheless, found their 

 way to the national collection at South Kensington, and 

 Mr Oldfield Thomas tells us that one species at least is 

 new to science. The larger beasts of prey are necessarily 

 absent upon these waterless wastes, though where rocky 

 jebels outcrop one may see the heavy spoor of hyena. 



Bird-life on the desert scant indeed, yet altogether 

 a charming relief to the austerity of these regions I 

 happen to have described elsewhere in this book : hence 

 need not here enter into detail. But, in brief, the outmost 

 wilderness is beautified in the main by exotic chats and 

 larks not exactly our familiar Saxicolce and Alauda, 

 but of the corresponding Ethiopian genera of Certhilauda, 

 Pyrrhulauda, and Ammomanes even the non-observant 



1 A discussion in The Field (August 9th, 1919) revealed the fact that 

 the hares of North Africa have been subdivided into no less than thirty 

 species, or "subspecies." The Editor comments : " It would seem that 

 almost every big-game hunter who takes the trouble to shoot and send 

 home a hare for identification, has had it named after him. There are at 

 least ten of these African hares named after different individuals and the 

 utmost confusion results." The above represents a modern instance of 

 the sophistication of zoological science. When "system" is driven to 

 such insane extremities, naught save ultimate chaos can ensue. 



2 Fennec (Vulpes zerda). Since Mr Butler has never met with this 

 species in the Sudan, it is probable that these little beasties (which we dug 

 out of a hole near Jebel Gerein) belonged to the creamy-white long-eared 

 fox known as Vulpes pallidus. 



