xlii INTRODUCTION. 
Cailliaud's journey was made in June probably accounts for the disappearance of 
all vegetation, whilst Rohlfs's visit, besides being made in winter, took place in a 
year remarkable for its exceptionally heavy rainfall. 
The oases of the Khargeh depression cover an area 120 kilometres in length. 
The chief oasis lies 69 metres above the sea. It has the same productions as those of 
the other oases, and it is especially well supplied with water. Cailliaud affords 
absolutely no information about its fauna. 
Hoskins 1 , who visited Khargeh, in 1835, states that wolves, hyaenas, and gazelles 
found a favourite resort among the rocks of an eminence, surrounded by sand-dunes, on 
which two convents stood. Some definite information about its reptiles was obtained 
by the Rohlfs expedition, who found an Agama (1 sinaita) and Chalcides ocellatus, to 
which have to be added Eremiatt rubropvnctata collected by Professor Sickenberger, 
and Psammophis schokari from Berys, one of the oases to the south, where it was 
procured by Major Lyons. It was the latter oasis to which Cailliaud first directed his 
steps after leaving the small oasis of Hagegeh, situated on rising ground covered with 
sand, but bearing a few dhum-palms and some date-trees, with orchards, and fields of 
dhurra irrigated from a spring of fresh water. The village of Berys, on an elevated 
rock, has near it some copious springs of hot water, varying in temperature from 
26°-6 to 32°-2 Cent., one of which, Cailliaud says, issues with such force from the middle 
of a pond that a person descending into the cavity whence it bubbles forth would be 
carried away by it. Like all such hot springs in the oases, these are used for 
irrigation. Cultivation is here carried on under great difficulties, as palisades, made 
from the stalks of the date-palm, have to be erected as a protection against the steady 
inroads of the desert sands. 
Schweinfurth 2 , who visited the oasis of Khargeh, in 1874, advanced from Assiut 
and retraced his steps to the Nile by Girgeh. In his references to the animal life of 
the oasis, no mention is made of either Reptiles or Batrachians, except a passing 
allusion to lizards. Although springs, brooks, and ponds abound, he affirms that 
no fish are present, and that, owing to the damp summer miasma and plagues of 
midges, it has been found impossible to acclimatize the camel; but, on the other hand, 
donkeys, sheep, and cattle are easily reared. Schweinfurth found five species of 
carnivorous Mammalia, animals which he says are almost without exception nocturnal, 
but by the aid of traps he succeeded in obtaining a great number of them. The 
species he enumerates are the dog-wolf, the Libyan cat, the dog-hyeena (Canis pictus), 
the jackal, and the Nile fox. The food of the last two, he states, consists largely of 
rodents (viz. Dipus and Gerlillus) and lizards, in which the desert abounds. Locusts, 
fowls, and domestic pigeons also are plentiful. Besides these, he mentions two species 
of antelopes of the oasis under the names of Antilope dorcas and A. dame. He 
1 ' Visit, to the Great Oasis of the Libyan Desert,' by G. A. Hoskins, 1837. 
3 Bull. Soe. Geogr. Paris, 1874, 6 ser. vii. p. 627 ; Brit. Afsoc. Rep. 1874, p. 173. 
