THE DESERT BULLFINCH 87 
But if only people would walk—and I can see no 
earthly reason why they shouldn't, they probably 
would at home—they would see such a wealth of 
charming pictures of bird-life that they would be 
well rewarded. As it is I have sometimes asked 
friends if they had noticed the extraordinary 
number of Wagtails, or whatever bird was passing 
by on its migration at the time, and have been 
astonished to find they had seen none, when 
sometimes the ground has been literally covered 
with them. But no, they go clanging and jolting 
along, and I suppose do really see nothing. 
At Assuan among the sand and rocks I have seen 
quite wonderfully brilliant male birds sitting sing- 
ing something almost worthy to be called a song, 
—the ordinary sound is this rather monotonous 
single note-call. Its food is distinctly hard food, 
as we say of a cage-bird, and it spares no growing 
crop—maize, grass, mustard, corn, all come alike 
to it—but with this bird, as with many others, 
one does wonder how they support existence 
in the arid, plantless deserts, for you see them 
quite commonly there, as well as on cultivated 
ground. I have seen them in English bird-fanciers’ 
shops, but have no knowledge as to whether they 
are good cage-birds ; the one thing, however, which 
