380 The Wilson Bulletin — No. 92 



Who shall decide which was the Hawk sacred to the an- 

 cient Egyptians, the Sparrow Hawk (Accipiter nisus) or the 

 Kestrel (Faico tinminculus) ? For my part I was not always 

 sure which of these small Hawks I was looking- at against 

 the dazzling sky ; but when there was advantage of near 

 views the Kestrel was the species more frequently seen. A 

 half dozen or more of them would be on the wing most of 

 the time over the larger temples, but there was no means of 

 estimating the number of those that remained perched in the 

 manifold nooks afforded by the ruins. 



Because my second visit to the temple at Medinet-Abu was 

 made in advance of the other visitors a view was obtained of 

 a small Owl, halted in its chase after Sparrows. It retired 

 to a niche prepared for it by the wise precaution of Rameses 

 HI. That monarch realizing how easily many of his fore- 

 fathers had stolen the monuments of their predecessors re- 

 solved to forestall this thieving propensity in his descendants 

 by making the job too hard for them in his temple at Med- 

 inet-Abu. This was done by cutting the hieroglyphics very 

 deep. The depth of some will admit the hand quite to the 

 wrist, a measurement of fully seven inches. There are many 

 hundred of these holes in the walls. It was in the Second 

 Court of the temple that the startled Owl sought refuge in 

 the last character in the cartouche of Rameses III, that is cut 

 into the south wall next to the cornice, and nearest the south- 

 west corner. Having slipped into this recess, admirable for 

 small Owls, it turned, watched me for a time, then slept. An 

 hour later it sat there while Ibrahim Khalil Ghaleb. our 

 Syrian dragoman from Mount Lebanon, delivered his lecture. 

 Amid this multiplicity of detail it is hoped that a certain 

 omission will not be detected ; that no one will notice that I 

 am unable to tell whether this small Owl was a Southern Lit- 

 tle Owl {Athene meridionalis) or a Little Owl {Athene noc- 

 tua) or Athene glaux. 



The source of the food supply for the small Hawks and 

 Owls is very apparent, but whence conies the food for the 

 Sparrow themselves in the desert surroundings of such tem- 



