AND LOWER EGYPT. J 35 



a state which was to present to them nothing but 

 a bed of mud ; they were already stagnant, and 

 of a brackish taste, and the birds which had the 

 good fortune to escape the snares laid for them on 

 all sides, when they arrived, prepared to seek to- 

 ward the Delta, a land more fortunate, a situation 

 more cheerful, and retreats more tranquil. 



The sparrows, on the contrary, more habituated 

 to the society of man, because their flesh, less de- 

 licate, provokes not his appetite, do not migrate ; 

 except in some excursions, in quest of more ample 

 means of subsistence, they leave not inhabited 

 places, and make them likewise their own residence. 

 They are domesticated birds, forming round us a 

 voluntary aviary of impudent parasites, who par- 

 take, whether we will or not, both of our food and 

 of our habitation ; they have, in Egypt, the same 

 character which we know them to possess in Eu- 

 rope, the same familiarity, the same effrontery, the 

 same voraciousness. They are there likewise the 

 uninvited guests of the Alexandrians ; they are to 

 be seen in all the inhabited districts of Egypt ; 

 Ihey are in like manner diffused over Nubia, and 

 even over Abyssinia. Excessive heat, therefore, 

 does not disagree with them ; at the same time 

 they are not to be found along the western coast 

 of Africa ; from cape Blanc, or near about it, they 



k 4 are 



