312 TRAVELS IN UPPER 



a prey to the flights of turtle-doves which alight on 

 his fields, neither destroys nor harasses them, but 

 suffers them to multiply in tranquillity. This con- 

 descension was not imitated by Europeans; they 

 did not make the least scruple of killing the turtle- 

 doves in the fields. It was from them that I learnt 

 the delicate distinction between the flesh of the one 

 and of the others. But they durst not have put 

 them openly to death at Cairo, where they are 

 greatly multiplied, and perfectly familiar. On my 

 first journey, I had the pleasure of seeing there, at 

 the end of the month of August, a pair of ring- 

 necked turile-doves build their nest on the shelf of 

 a window in the consul's house. Habituated to 

 the protection of man, and having nothing besides 

 to dread from the intemperature of the atmosphere, 

 these gentle birds employed very little art in this 

 work ; it was nothing but a few straws negligently 

 laid across. The female deposited there, on the 

 night of the 28th, an egg, which would undoubt- 

 edly have been followed by another. I took the 

 utmost precaution that she should not be disturb- 

 ed, and I was not sparing of my orders, that her 

 arrangements might be perfectly free from inter- 

 ruption ; but all was in vain. The nest, the eggs, 

 were carried off, and with them the fruits of the 

 love of that species of bird which best knows the 

 feelings of it, and the satisfaction which I should 

 have enjoyed in watching their progress, and in 



observing 



