1877.] Recent Literature. 39 
the sacred ibis is no longer found in Egypt. What would the shaven 
priests say if they could live over again? My humble opinion is that 
they would say that in their wild state they never were anything but 
rarities, and confirm the theory of Dr. Adams? that they were imported 
from the south. I look upon them as an imported exotic, for I cannot 
conjecture what natural cause can have operated upon them to produce 
their extinction, if they ever were natives. They were domesticated, in 
time they became totally dependent on man, Egypt was conquered by 
another nation, the hand of protection was withdrawn, and the breed 
died out.” Savigny while in Egypt saw one sacred ibis alive. “ Its 
extinction, therefore, must be of comparatively recent date. Fortunately 
it has not been extirpated altogether, like the great auk and the Nestor 
productus. It is still common in more southern regions, though driven 
from its stronghold in Egypt.” Concerning animal life in Egypt the 
author thus pleasantly discourses, and with this extract our notice closes : 
“ While my attendant is rolling a cigarette, I pause a moment to wonder 
what goal all the thousands of pale Egyptian swifts which are career- 
ing by can have. They pass by, but there is no check; others take 
their place. Can they who press on with such steady purpose stop 
short of Europe? Their heads are all to the north; they are flying 
low, like birds with a settled object. Less numerous, but still innumer- 
able, and with the same aim, and flying in the same direction, I see a 
cloud of sand martins. At the rate they are now going they will soon 
be decimating insect life at Cairo, and banking over the pools of El 
Tostat, in conjunction with the rufous-breasted swallow and its distinct 
English congener. But all Egyptian birds are not migrants. There 
are the stay-at-homes, and one of these is the hooded crow, which sits in 
the sycamore-fig, announcing with loud caws, to all who may be inter- 
ested in the fact, that she has laid her eggs; and another is the parasitic 
greater spotted cuckoo, which chuckles at the thought of having added 
one to the number. These belong to a class which is divisible into flats 
and sharpers — birds who ‘ do’ others or are themselves ‘ done.’ 
“Tn the long grass the fantail builds her gem of a nest, and the Dry- 
meca gracilis, another minute warbler, gata to her young ones, 
' praaclicra? already with little bodies and n 
“ Small rodents spring into the ditches, sións scuttle up the walls of _ 
houses, the moving snake eyes the fledgeling, and the sly fox trots 
away among the tobacco plants. So great is the overflow of animal — 
life that no one can fail to be struck by it. Only those can appreciate — 
the scene in its zoölogical aspect who are capable of discriminating be- 
tween the many species, though all can and must listen with unmixed 
oc feelings of pleasure to the chanting of the choristers and the hum of 
many insects, and all must feel the balmy air and fragrant luxuriance of 
foliage and blossom, and derive enjoyment from the view before ne pe 
1 Ibis, 1864, page 32. 
