SIX MONTHS’ BIRD COLLECTING IN EGYPT. 133 
were occasionally tried at them, but the Delta is too populous 
to admit of much rifle practice. However, a fine specimen 
was shot with the gun at Mershoom. Going up the Nile 
we saw eighteen in two days, but very few in coming 
down again. At Gebel-Abou-Foeder a pair seemed to 
have a nest in the cliffs) My father has shown me that, 
according to Dr. Bree’s translations from Von Heuglin, it 
nests-in the Gulf of Suez in February and April. It may 
be, therefore, that some remain the summer on the Nile, but 
I did not see any, to identify them, after the 1st of April. 
The head of this species and the Spotted Eagle are very 
hard to pass in skinning. 
11, LANNER FaA.con, Fako lanarius, Linn. ; 
F, feldeggii, Schleg. 
I cannot say for certain if the Lanner was seen by us 
below Cairo, but I identified it to my satisfaction at the 
Pyramids. By the second of those mighty memorials of a 
bygone age, my guide sprung a Quail, and an unmistakable 
Lanner instantly dashed off in pursuit of it. The quarry 
settled and the Falcon “waited on,” but when I went up to 
flush it again for her, she flew on to the face of the Great 
Pyramid, but I had seen her light head, and albeit Pere- 
grines were at that time (February 16th) still plentiful, I 
was satisfied. 
No doubt in Egypt, as in other countries, the Arab sheiks 
have trained their Lanners to the noble sport of falconry, 
and their high courage has enabled them to be used for 
larger game than their natural instincts would lead them to 
attack. I imagine that their usual natural food is the Quail 
when it arrives. I have sometimes, when shooting them, had 
a Lanner dash past me like a flash of lightning, which I had 
myself seen an instant before a mere speck in the sky. Yet 
from that great height he had seen that one of the Quails 
