The Zoologist— November, 1868. 1435 



zoologist feels most severely the author's want of scientific know ledge : 

 m a region abounding in the feathered tribes, and with such extra- 

 ordinary facilities for observing them, one cannot but express regret 

 that so little information is given ; and this regret one feels the more 

 deeply from the evidence the author gives of his descriptive powers. 

 The Ornithology of Nubia is left almost as complete a blank as before 

 Sir Samuel's visit, and the information for which we are all thirsting 

 as to the migrants and residents of that terra incognita is withheld 

 us, simply from the fact of the narrator not knowing exactly what 

 facts to observe. How different is the result of Tristram's visit to 

 the Great Zaara or to Palestine, which seem to have brought so 

 vividly before us the winged inhabitants of these previously un- 

 explored districts. But we must take what we can get. Sir Samuel 

 records the slaughter of a beautiful gazelle, and thus continues :— 



"Having done the needful with my beautiful prize, and extracted 

 the interior, I returned for my camel that had assisted so well in the 

 stalk. Hardly had I led the animal to the body of the ariel, when I 

 heard a rushing sound like a strong wind, and down came a vulture 

 with its wings collapsed, falling from an immense height direct to its 

 prey, in its eagerness to be the first in the race. By the time that I 

 had fastened the ariel across the back of the camel, many vultures 

 were sitting upon the ground at a few yards' distance, while others 

 were arriving every minute : before I had shot the ariel, not a vulture 

 had been in sight ; the instant that I retreated from the spot a flock 

 of ravenous beaks were tearing at the offal."— p. 87. 



The seemingly miraculous transit of information respecting the pre- 

 sence of food is a subject that has long since attracted the notice of 

 all naturalists travelling in the desert regions of earth's surface. 

 Charles Waterton, the wanderer par excellence, was particularly 

 struck by it ; and his amusing controversy with Audubon, on the 

 question of "eyes or nose," "scent or sight," will long be remembered 

 by all who take an interest in such inquiries. Sir Samuel Baker 

 makes it a subject for serious investigation, as will be seen from a 

 second passage which 1 have extracted below ; and he has broached 

 a theory which is quite new to me, and which I cannot accept in its 

 entirety, although I do not doubt it may derive considerable support 

 from the observations of naturalists. The main question between 

 " eyes and nose" Sir Samuel gives unhesitatingly in favour of "eyes;" 

 but he believes also that the higher and cooler realms of air abound 



