AND LOWER EGYPT. 339 



earth of the rice-grounds is so deeply impregnated 

 with water, that you sink at every step you take, 

 and sometimes half way up your body. The 

 snipes arrive at the beginning of November in 

 search of the aquatic cantons of Lower Egypt, and 

 they pass the whole of the winter there. 



There are also, but fewer in number, armed 

 and crested plovers •. The Europeans resident in 

 Egypt call them dominicans, on account of the re- 

 semblance which the distribution of black and 

 white with which their plumage is variegated, 

 gives them to the habit of this order of monks. 

 These plovers, exactly the same with those which 

 I had seen some years before, in the month of 

 August in the countrv of the Iolofs, on the western 

 coast of Africa, delight to frequent the borders of 

 pools of water, on the brink of rivers, and in all 

 humid places, although they never go into the 

 water. These are noisy and wild birds ; you ap- 

 proach them with difficulty; but if they have 

 learnt to fly from man, that tyrant of the animal 

 creation, they enjoy among themselves love and 

 the pleasures of sociability, they are never alone, 

 they are always to be seen in pairs or in little 

 troops, 



* Pluvier a aigrettes. Btiffon, Hist. Nat. des Ois. & pi. 

 enlum. No. 801, under the name of the armtd plover of Senegal. 

 —GftOradiius spinorus. Lin. 



z 2 They 



