EGYPTIAN BIRDS 
Puiny declares that it was by watching the flight 
of birds in general, and of the Kite in particular, 
that men first conceived the idea of steering their 
boats and ships with a tail or rudder, for, says he, 
‘these birds by the turning and steering by their 
tails showed in the air what was needful to be done 
in the deep.” Nowhere can the aerial movements 
of birds be better studied than on the Nile, and as 
one’s eye becomes trained it is just by the varying 
individual methods of flight that one is often able 
to identify the particular species of birds. This is 
to the most casual observer self-evident in those 
birds that fly close, near, or over one’s head ; but it 
is astonishing how, as the eye gets trained, even a 
faint speck high up in mid-air can be absolutely 
identified by some peculiarity of shape and move- 
ment. On Plate 2 are some half-dozen different 
birds depicted as in flight, to assist the reader to 
identify the birds he will frequently see. 
No. 1 is the ordinary Kite of Egypt. Seen as 
soon’ as one lands at Alexandria or Port Said: 
1 1 
