Birds by the Wayside 383 



Grey-headed Yellow Wagtails, Little Green Bee-eaters, and 

 Hoopoes. 



Larklike notes borne to the stranger's ears by some morn- 

 ing breeze may be his first introduction to the Crested Lark 

 {Galerita cristata). The singer is easily found: a brownish 

 bird slightly smaller than our members of the Alaudidae fam- 

 ily, also less distinguished in appearance in spite of his crest. 

 Much tamer than the Prairie Horned Lark he will keep to 

 a race along the roadway until nearly under foot, and appears 

 better content to sing from no greater eminence than a clod 

 than does his American cousin. This species appeared to 

 be the most abundant and evenly distributed of Egypt's field 

 birds. Sometimes its cheerful song was heard on the river 

 when the steamer ran close to the shore. Although the 

 Desert Lark (Ammomanes hisitana) abounds in Egypt it was 

 not met by me until we reached Abu Simbel in Nubia, where 

 a few individuals were seen; also on subsequent days. 



The bird that was seen almost everywhere and on every 

 day except one, was the White Wagtail (Motacilla alba). 

 No place apparently was too dry and forbidding for its thor- 

 ough searchings : railway tracks, roofs of houses and of 

 steamers, bottoms of row-boats, river banks, and rubbish 

 heaps all claimed its careful attention. Seemingly the north- 

 ward migration for the White Wagtail had begun the last 

 of February, when it was met in large numbers in the same 

 desert spot back of Wadi Haifa, in which the Egyptian Vul- 

 ture was found so abundant. The Wagtails were constantly 

 changing places, rendering an exact count of them impossi- 

 ble, but their number there must have equaled one hundred 

 and fifty. The thought did not then occur that later in the 

 vear I might meet some of these same birds three thousand 

 miles to the north of that place, yet subsequent experiences 

 indicated that such a meeting was not in the least improba- 

 ble. Most unexpected meetings await the tourist on the 

 highways of travel ; of this class was the encounter with oitr 

 own American bird, the Turkey ; several of these domesti- 



