22 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 
mountains, but the sport is considered expensive, owing to 
the number of beaters required. After duly inspecting 
them, I remembered that I had come to Africa to study 
birds; and all athirst for unknown species, I ascended to 
Fort St. Croix. 
Having satisfactorily identified some Dartford Warblers, 
(Melizophilus undatus) whose flight was very weak, especially 
if there was any wind, I worked my way home by another 
path, noting as I went along the Kestrel (7ixnunculus 
alaudarius), the Black-headed Warbler (Sylvia melano- 
cephala), the Corn Bunting (Emberiza miliaria), the Wren 
(Troglodytes parvulus), and the Grey Wagtail (Motacilla 
sulphurea, Bech.), flirting about by a ditch of water. Other 
birds I saw in the distance, but enough had been identified 
to show that the avifauna of Algeria was not so very 
different from that of England; however, on the hillside I 
listened to a truly African bird (as I believe), the Dusky 
Ixos (Los obscurus). Its notes rang through the newly- 
planted pine groves. There were three in the market, 
which confirms my impression that the bird I heard was 
the Ixos. It is said to have occurred in Britain. It is very 
sombre coloured. I made notes of two species not in- 
cluded in the late Mr. Drake’s “ Birds of Eastern Morocco,” 
(Ibis, 2nd series, III., p. 142,—V., p. 147,) the irrepressible 
Sparrow (Passer domesticus), which I thought I had left 
behind me in England, and the Barbary Partridge (Caccabis 
petrosa), which flies fast and straight with neck outstretched, 
making as much noise with its wings as our grey one when 
flushed, and giving utterance to a shrill note or two. I was 
surprised to see some in the town with their throats of cut, 
which the Arabs generally insist upon doing, for your true 
Mahommedan conceives himself forbidden by the direct law 
of the prophet to eat anything which has not died by the 
knife. I afterwards got eleven eggs of this Partridge. 
There was a steamer to Algiers on the 28th, a distance of 
