SIX MONTHS’ BIRD COLLECTING IN EGYPT. 213 
they would not quit until I was quite under them. One 
fine specimen was shot upon a sandbank, but that was 
exceptional. 
The flight of this bird is slow: when high up, battling 
against the wind, he makes no headway, but remains 
stationary: his short tail gives him an absurd appearance. 
Two is the normal number of occipital plumes. I shot 
one with three, but they were short ones. My father has a 
Norfolk specimen with six.* A Night Heron weighs about 
1} Ibs. 
Wilkinson, who was no ornithologist, thinks that “the 
Tufted Benoo” was the Buff-backed Heron, which he mixes 
up in his description with the Lesser Egret. I agree with 
Dr. Adams that the pictures are much more like a Night 
Heron. They vary, but one or two I think are unmistak- 
ably the Night Heron, which accordingly has the honour of 
being one of the four sacred birds of Egypt. 
My father has determined this to be the Aledo agyptia of 
Hasselquist, in immature plumage, from the description in 
the Latin edition. 
178. WHITE STORK, Ciconia alba, Bechst.; “ Billerique.” 
Egypt is a famous country for collecting the Heron and 
Stork tribe: I doubt if any other country has a greater 
number of species or individuals. The subject of this note 
is familiar to everyone from boyhood as the household bird 
of the continent, emblem among the Germans of affection 
and constancy, whom it is pious to foster, impious to slay. 
But the feeling which protects it in Europe, (and in the 
Algerian “Tell,”) does not yet extend to Egypt, and the 
* At p. 4913 of the Zoologist, Mr. Rodd records the occurrence ofa 
Cornish specimen with ten ! ; 
