374 The Wilson Bulletin— No. 92 



The other modes of travel in Egypt and Nubia were by- 

 boat, carriage, sand-cart and donkey-back, none of which 

 yielded the satisfaction in bird viewing that was experienced 

 on the few occasions when I could go on foot and alone. 

 Since all bird observing was incidental to general sight- 

 seeing nothing more was seen than every tourist may see. 

 On the other hand I fell far short of seeing the wonders re- 

 ported by some trippers who, after a month spent on the Nile, 

 write of seeing certain species in abundance that Shelley 

 appears never to have seen, but credits them to Egypt on the 

 authority of others. After excepting the marvelous numbers 

 of birds about Lake Menzaleh it can be said that the birds 

 on the rest of the Egyptian trip were far less abundant than 

 they were in India, and not equal to the numbers I found in 

 southern California during the previous winter. 



The late Crown Prince Rudolph of Austria related hunting 

 experiences that had a truly regal flavor to them: such as 

 that of " beating " the garden of the Khedive at Heliopolis, 

 where he killed a jackal, and another man killed a fairly large 

 she-wolf. Better still was the hunt among the Pyramids of 

 Gizeh, of which he wrote, " we got some Arabs to go up the 

 second Pyramid and drive down the jackals which it har- 

 bors. We were, however, badly posted; so a couple of jack- 

 als broke through unhurt and skurried off into the boundless 

 waste." The trustworthy book of Captain Shelley states 

 that the Lanner Falcon {Falco lanarius), the Red-naped Fal- 

 con {Falco Babyloniciis), and the Egyptian Eagle Owl 

 (Bubo ascalaphus) breed annually on the Pyramids. 



The itinerary of the ordinary traveler includes no hunting 

 expedition to the Great Pyramids ; instead a very common- 

 place donkey-back ride around about them. On my visit to 

 them there were seen AVhite Wagtails and Kites. No Eagle 

 Owls were seen there or elsewhere except in cages in the 

 Cairo Zoological Gardens. One cage was placarded as con- 

 taining an American Eagle Owl. The bird of wisdom in it 

 had a decidedly familiar appearance, and I am not absolutely 

 certain that it did not give me a knowing, one-eyed wink, such 



