SIX MONTHS’ BIRD COLLECTING IN EGYPT. 121 
the size of life, and are painted, together with four White- 
fronted Geese, upon a slab which was found by the gentle- 
man who has amassed this unrivalled collection, at Meydoun. 
They are supposed to be older than the Pyramids themselves. 
They are the best executed, and by far the most life-like 
of any bird-pictures that I saw in Egypt. The White- 
fronted Geese are not adult, having but little or no black 
barring on the under surface; and curiously it was the same 
with those which we got, which looks as if the species was 
longer in arriving at maturity than in England. 
The only other bird in the museum which calls for re- 
mark, though there are many other things of the highest 
interest, is an exquisite Sacred Ibis, very fresh and very 
faithful, which has been drawn, not from the conventional 
pattern of the tombs, but from nature. In the temple at 
Edfoo there is a delineation (uncoloured of course) most 
wonderfully like a Bustard, a species included by Wilkinson 
with a query; and in the last tomb but one at Beni Hassan 
it is easy to make out the Spoonbill, the Barn Owl, the 
Masked Shrike, and sundry others. No one, naturalist or 
not, ought to go. by this grotto without visiting the two 
end tombs, though the pictures have been shamefully 
defaced. The unrivalled cartoons in the tombs of the kings, 
the beautiful temple of Philz, and many other tombs and 
temples have been almost spoilt by the selfish cupidity and 
crass ignorance of a class of visitors who are an unmitigated 
disgrace to whatever nation they belong to. The Viceroy 
sees and knows that this is going on, and yet he provides 
no custodian for any of these places except Dendera. 
To return to the birds which occur in the sculptures. Sir 
Gardner Wilkinson gives a list, with a facsimile of outlines, 
in his “Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians,” 
among which one can recognise the Lesser Ring Dotterel, 
Spurwinged Plover (a very characteristic Egyptian bird), 
