27-24 The Zoologist—August, 1871. 



towns we visited, viz. Mellika, Bou Noura, El Ateuf, Benuisgueu. 

 These towns are all in the same oasis, and the dry course of the 

 river winds between them. Bou Noura is a heap of ruins; half the 

 town has been dismantled, and the crumbling, unroofed, long- 

 deserted houses have grown brown like the rocks which surround 

 them. On the other hand, El Ateuf and Benuisgueu are in better 

 preservation, and contain some shops or magazines where it is 

 possible to buy European products. Benuisguen has long been 

 the rival of Gardaia, and that its inhabitants still aspire to the 

 chieftainship of the oasis was proved by a new wall, which we found 

 then constructing, and which affords one instance of the intestine 

 rivalry which has rendered every stand against the French abortive. 

 Of course I lost no opportunity of taking observations on the avi- 

 fauna of such a little-known district. I was particularly struck with 

 the green Egyptian bee-eaters {Merops superciliosus) : they seemed 

 to affect the graveyards. Two of the handsomest chals which I met 

 with in the course of my rambles were common at this oasis, — the 

 whiterumped rockchat {Dromolea leiicopygia) and the whileheaded 

 rockchat {D. leucocephala), — not so much in the gardens as in the 

 " weds" and on the walls: they enter towns freely and perch upon 

 the tlat-roofed houses. 



We did not start upon our return journey until the last day of 

 the month. One of the chiefs was good enough to accompany me 

 home, and I further availed myself of the convoy of two Spahis, 

 who had been sent with letters from Laghouat. 



The first day's journey lay through the stony Chebka Mzab, 

 where, among mountains utterly sterile and bare of herbage, our 

 cavalcade trod foot-sore and weary, and the only rare bird seen by 

 me was a Houbara bustard ; its flight is almost like that of a bird 

 of prey : it is the falconer's favourite quarry, and defends itself by 

 ejecting a slimy fluid. When the Chebka Mzab was passed we 

 again entered upon the sandy prairie which stretches right to 

 Laghouat, and 1 had further opportunity of examining the dayats 

 which had so much interested me. It was just the period of migra- 

 tion (May 2nd), and wherever there was water they were teeming 

 with animal life: it was as if all the spring migrants of Southern 

 Europe had been compressed into fifty acres. Beneath every 

 jujube tree, at every thicket, were massed and congregated all manner 

 of rare birds; pied flycatchers (Muse tea pa liiclnosa), hoopoes 

 {Upupa epops), doves {Col iwiba Tiirt ur), woodch&is {Latiius niftts) 



