160 
Rev. H. B. Tristram on the 
There remain then but 7 species undoubtedly and peculiarly 
North African; and these, with the very interesting excep¬ 
tions of Aquila ncevioides and the exquisite little Ruticilla 
moussieri, all have closely allied European cousins, whose place 
they supply in the Algerian economy. Is it too much to affirm 
that there is not a district in Europe of equal extent which does 
not present at least as great a number of peculiar forms ? It 
is fair to admit that some of the habitual denizens of Algeria 
obtain a place in the European catalogues on questionable au¬ 
thority, or rather, I should say, from the occurrence of some too 
restless wanderer far from his native haunts, as, e. g., Elanus 
melanopterus. Little wot these foolish stragglers of the destruc¬ 
tion they bring upon their race by the transgression of Nature's 
limits ! Once out of bounds, and caught on European soil, they 
are noted in the price catalogue of every ‘marchand des oiseaux' 
throughout the Continent; and their skins and eggs are indis¬ 
pensable to the drawers and cabinets of German and French 
collectors. As in England the science of natural history is 
disgraced by pretenders and their abettors, who have the un¬ 
manly nerve to draw the trigger against the last Eagle of a dis¬ 
trict, to sneak for days in ambush against a Hoopoe, or desolate 
the last resting-place of some historic Peregrines, so the cata¬ 
logues of Paris, of Copenhagen, and of Hamburg tell too plainly 
of the efforts made for the most sordid purposes to swell the 
list of European species*. 
* I may remark, in passing, that the French dealers appear to consider 
Algeria as, ornithologically, a province of Southern Spain. I have been 
amused by the rich stores they can produce of birds and eggs from Anda¬ 
lusia, which, though very scarce there, are abundant in the more accessible 
Algeria. In one shop in Paris I saw some very fine eggs of Gypaetus, 
which I was assured had been taken in the Pyrenees, but which had upon 
them the private mark of a certain Algerian collector with whom I was 
well acquainted. Skins of Ixos obscurus , &c., all labelled from the south 
of Spain, bore a most remarkable resemblance to the (to me) familiar pre¬ 
parations of this gentleman, whom I had assisted in packing a box for 
Paris. 
In the summer of 1856 I was in the habit of employing the boat and 
local knowledge of a professional chasseur on an Algerian lake. This man 
used to send boxes of eggs to another Paris dealer. His collections were 
never named, for he knew only the provincial appellations of the birds. I 
