178 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 
fellaheen, who bear the mess and the fleas therein en- 
gendered with Oriental stolidity. The cote consists of 
numerous pots,’a foot or so in diameter, which are let in, one 
above the other, with little round apertures for the pigeons 
to goin at. Branches are stuck into the masonry all round 
for the pigeons to perch upon. In Upper Egypt the 
'-pigeon houses are square and not generally domed. In 
Lower Egypt they are quite different, some of them being 
like ant-hills with the tops of the cone shaved off; but see 
Mr. Fairholt’s remarks in “Up the Nile,” pp. 112—120. 
Rock Pigeons have been so brought under domestication 
in many countries that it is hard to say which are really 
wild ones, and nowhere more so than in Egypt. Even 
when we saw them in cliffs away from houses, at Abou-foeder 
and Gebel-El-Thayr, there were dark birds of domestic 
origin among them. At Abou-fceder, on the 3rd of May, 
there may have been thirty pairs scattered along the base of 
the cliff, of which I should think at least ten pairs consisted 
of one mottled bird, and one Rock or Schimper’s. There 
was even one pale fawn-coloured bird paired with a Schim- 
pers. The way in which they settle on the water to drink— 
like Gulls—has been remarked.* They seem to drink far 
more than other birds. All day, from every village, streams 
of them are passing to and returning from the nearest sand- 
bank. They go to roost early. The young are capital, 
done spatch-cock fashion, and the old make good soup. I 
never heard any objection made to shooting them except in 
the Delta—where they are much less numerous—at a time 
when they had young. 
© A writer in the “Field” newspaper (June 26th, 1875) narrates an 
instance of a Wood-Pigeon settling to drink, but it alighted on the 
water with outspread wings, which I never saw any of the Egyptian 
Pigeons do. 
