2716 * The Zoologist — August, 1871. 



" rare, salee, amere, chaude," four emphatic adjectives which apply 

 only too truly : I suppose it comes by some means from the neigh- 

 bouring marsh, where the phenomenon of mirage may be seen 

 every day. I believe Dr. Tristram found a profusion of water-fowl 

 at this marsh. When I was there it was nearly dry : the sand 

 grouse and the desert wheatear had supplanted the waders, and 

 only the delusive mirage, before mentioned, floated over the hard 

 mud : I saw, however, what I believe to have been three flamingoes, 

 and was assured by many persons that they are frequently found 

 dead here under the newly-constructed telegraph-wire, as well as 

 "ganga" (sand grouse) and other birds. 



I found Ain Oussera, which was the second stage, a very sterile 

 lonely place. A muddy stream winds its tardy course before the 

 entrance of the caravanserai, and some attempts had been made to 

 cultivate the stony soil. Elsewhere, far as the eye can reach, 

 nought but a scanty lierbage clothes the plain, — a coarse kind of 

 grass, to the height of two or three feet (different from what grows 

 in the weds), — forming a bleak retreat for the desert wheatear, the 

 dotterel and the tawny pipit: sans a camel, sans a trace of cultiva- 

 tion, the eye finds no relief. As the setting sun sheds a yellow glare 

 over the treeless ])lain, and the shadows lengthen, one may speculate 

 on the not distant period when troops of lawless Bedouins roamed 

 over the desert. The Barbary states are now at peace, from the 

 palm-shaded oases of Tripoli to the bazaars and gardens of Moorish 

 Tangiers, and the Nomad is brought into contact with the products 

 of European civilization. I collected specimens of two rare larks 

 here, — Galerida macrorhyncha, Trist., and Calendrella rcboudia, 

 Loche, — and of the desert wheatear {Saxicola deserti), which had 

 not previously been observed so far north, also some calandras and 

 common dotterels {Charadrius nioriiiellus), and the first hoopoe of 

 the season ; but I was not so fortunate as to get the creamcoloured 

 courser's eggs (Cm^'So/vms' ^a///f««), which were here obtained for 

 the first time by Dr. Tristram in 1856, having been previously 

 unknown to Science. 



i Guelt et Stel, another caravanserai, is situate in a pass near 

 the seven mamelons (which were just visible from Ain Oussera). 

 It is nearly fifty miles from Boghari, and partakes more of 

 mountain than of the desert: here I obtained several birds not 

 in the Sahara catalogue, such as the ring ouzel, ultramarine tit, 

 linnet, serin, goldfinch, Algerian chaflSnch and greenfinch, which 



