BIRD LIFE IN EASTERN ALGERIA. 131 



Martin (Chelidon urbica), a bird with a strong affection for 

 Europeans, and their stone houses and eaved roofs. The country 

 about there is very European in appearance. We saw corn-fields, 

 and red-tiled station-houses, with gardens full of our flowers and 

 vegetables, and a few vines perhaps ; the usual grove of eucalyptus 

 trees having nothing of Africa about it, at all events. The cows, 

 as usual, were just like coarsely-bred Jerseys. But suddenly you 

 see some white-burnoused Arabs, or bare-legged brown children, 

 the girls in the universal blue cotton, and the boys in ragged 

 dirty-white, and red chachias ; a string of camels, or a white- 

 domed marabout's tomb rising up among the corn, and the 

 illusion vanishes. After Tarja the line rises more rapidly. 

 Many of the little hills (the soil of which is very red) are clothed 

 with vineyards, and there are extensive European gardens. We 

 passed among little wooded hills with some Aleppo pines (Pinns 

 halepensis), through several short tunnels, and then left the main 

 valley, and in a few minutes arrived at Souk Ahras, a thoroughly 

 French town, where much and good wine is made, the soil and 

 climate being suitable. 



Souk Ahras is 2067 ft. above the sea. The air felt delight- 

 fully fresh, and the climate is said to be temperate and very 

 healthy. From the distinctly European appearance, and peaceful 

 aspect of this agricultural neighbourhood, one found it difficult 

 to realise that only five and twenty years earlier the Arabs here 

 rose in revolt, and, after burning the farms and killing the 

 colonists, attacked the town. But a shocking massacre occurred 

 at no great distance ten years later. It is curious to notice how 

 some towns are given up to a particular species of Swallow or 

 Swift. This place (said to be the birth-place of St. Augustine) 

 is in the possession of the House Martin. The Hotel de Ville 

 (which I took at first for a church, from the fact that a wedding 

 party were just emerging from it) held a great many nests, stuck 

 in clusters at the corners of the little pilasters, under the eaves, 

 and in the corners of the windows. There were swarms of the 

 birds in the air about the building. The next morning, from 

 observations made from my bedroom window, I found that the 

 ruling Sparrow was Passer domesticus, with grey crown and typical 

 chestnut back. Either it has ousted P. hispaniolensis — the com- 

 mon Sparrow of the country — or the latter never took posses- 

 sion of this new and strange kind of town. P. domesticus was 



