56 EGYPTIAN BIRDS 
One hardly knows how to cure this cruelty, 
for the humane nearly always rebuke the boy, 
give him a piastre or two, and liberate the bird, 
and pass on thinking they have done a good deed. 
The bird can only flutter feebly away, and the boy 
of course re-catches it and goes through the same 
performance with the next kind-hearted, foolish 
visitor. It is with regret I write it, but I do not 
in the least now believe in the Egyptian’s love for 
birds, or anything other than backsheesh. Why 
the birds are or were so universally tame is not 
because of their kindliness, but simply because of 
their apathy. The moment it dawns on them 
that there is anything to be made out of birds or 
any other lovely thing they are as brutal as the 
very worst British hooligan. 
I have sometimes seen Bee-eaters in the ruins 
and temples, and in this connection it is interesting 
to recall that there is a very good representation of 
one flying, in the celebrated series of pictures of the 
expedition to Punt at Deir-el-Bahari, the only case 
I can remember of a Bee-eater being so represented. 
It is entirely insectivorous, and is one of the many 
birds which ought, in this insect-infested country, 
to be strictly preserved, for it is appalling to think 
what an unbearable land this would be for us thin- 
