The Zoologist — August, 1871. 2715 



gulls, and many a restless flock of what I supposed to be the Manx 

 shearwater, but I did not on that voyage see any storm petrels or 

 cinereous shearwaters [Piijffinus cinereus). 



To a person setting foot on a new continent for the first time 

 everything seems novel, and when at length, on the 25th of January, 

 1870, I disembarked at Oran, capital of that province, my expecta- 

 tions were at a high pilch. I took the first steamer to Algiers, as 

 travelling by land is expensive and slow. Ten days passed rapidly 

 with me at that town : in the morning I generally went out with my 

 gun, and among other birds I was fortunate enough to shoot a 

 hooded shrike {Telephonus ischagra). In the vegetable and poultry 

 market I saw a concourse of birds : it was melancholy to see the 

 strings of robins, thrushes, stonechats, titlarks, willow wrens, 

 sparrows, blackcaps, starlings, wrens, sky larks and blackbirds. 



Before commencing my journey into the Sahara I visited one or 

 two towns in "the Tell,"* viz. Blida, Bouffarik, Miliana. The 

 mountains of the Atlas raise their snow-capped summits behind 

 Blida, forming the southern boundary of the valley of the Metidja. 

 Bouffarik is merelj' a village. Miliana is a fortified town on the slope 

 of Mount Zakkar, overlooking a level plain watered by the river 

 Chelif. At these places I got the dipper [Cinclus aquaticus), men- 

 tioned by Loche as very rare (' Exploration sc. oiseaux,' i. p. 306), 

 and many other interesting birds, such as Cetti's vf&xhlex {Pol am odus 

 Cettii, Marm.), the Spanish sparrow (Passer salicaria), the dusky 

 ixos {Ixos ohscurus), the lesser spotted woodpecker {Piciis mino?-, 

 P. Ledoucii, Malh.), the meadow bunting [Emberiza cia) and 

 Moussier's redstart [Riiticilla Moussieri). 



After a month spent in this way, I finally started for the interior. 

 I need not describe Boghari, the first halting-place: it is an Arab 

 village, but very poorly represents what I afterwards saw in the 

 Mzab country. The first " caravanserai," t properly so called, and 

 the best, is Bougzoul : it is in the Hauts Plateaux. Though but 

 twelve miles distant from the mountains, the water at Bougzoul is 

 nearly unfit for drinking. The guide-book correctly states it to be 



* Dr. Tristram definea "the Tell" as "the corn-growing country from the coast 

 to the Atlas." (Ibis, i, 277.) 



+ A " caravanserai" is a white one-storied fortified house, enclosing a large court- 

 yard, with chambers all round for the accommodation of travellers, and stabling for 

 several horses. The Hauts Plateaux, or Steppes, are interchangeable terms for the 

 northern portion of the Little Desert (or Algerian Sahara), which commences where 

 the Tell ends and terminates at Waregla. 



