122 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



spiny shrubs, from whose clutches only " gabardine " escapes 

 unscathed. Nor are there in these few miles of Algerian 

 territory which I used to visit more than one or two Arab douars 

 of the smallest dimensions, with scanty prickly-pear gardens; for 

 that part of the valley is sparsely populated in comparison with 

 that lower down. For the most part the hills rise sharply on 

 each bank of the river (some spurs of the Atlas in sight reaching 

 to about 2500 and 3000 ft.), their rocky or stony sides thickly 

 covered with rosemary, gum cistus, cytisus, and thorny shrubs, 

 and in parts with a taller growth of wild olive, batoum {Pistacia 

 terebinthus ?), &c. Still higher are some fair grassy pastures, 

 studded in places with a few wild olives, hawthorns, dwarf 

 shrubby batoums, &c. ; or covered with the blackened stems 

 of shrubs, victims of a great forest fire which raged for miles on 

 both sides of the valley in the previous year. This higher bare 

 ground is interspersed with stretches still covered with rosemary, 

 cytisus, cistus, &c , and with naked stony or rocky ground. To 

 the highest parts of the hills just here I never climbed. At the 

 foot of the hills the banks of the river in places are overgrown 

 with the lovely pink oleander, tamarisk, wild olive, myrtle, and 

 other shrubs. The oleander and tamarisk grow also on little 

 islands formed in its bed by the river dividing. The river has a 

 rapid fall, and still, glassy lagoons are less frequent than rippling 

 shallows, and tumbling, rushing rapids. The bed of the river 

 is stony and full of boulders, and the stream is sometimes 

 interrupted by lumps of rock ; the banks are chiefly rocky, and 

 at this season the water seldom quite touched them, leaving 

 usually a border of water-worn pebbles or some mud. 



This is the sort of country in which my walks lay, but I 

 should add that the hill-sides on the south bank (to which I 

 confined my steps) are almost, if not quite, devoid of permanent 

 water, though the heavy thunderstorms which occasionally occur, 

 and send the river down in flood, wear out many a torrent-course 

 in their dry and stony sides. During the course of my stay in 

 the district I paid a short visit to a place at the head of the 

 valley on very high ground, but as the country there (and its 

 birds) presented some difference to that treated of now, I shall 

 refer to it separately in the latter part of this paper. 



I cannot refrain from mentioning here a very curious plant, 

 which was quite a feature in the landscape foreground. It is 



