THE RED SEA HILLS 357 
across them, and that my unknown gazelles of September 
1904 at Elmenteita were, in fact, ariel. 1 
It was, by the way, the same Elmi Hassan who was 
afterwards with Selous, and who was badly injured 
by a wounded buffalo on the Northern Guaso Nyero, 
British East, as related by Selous in an article entitled 
“My Last Buffalo” ( Field\ June 8th, 1912). In Mr 
J. G. Millais* excellent “Life of F. C. Selous,” the 
name is inadvertently misspelt “ Elani.” 
BIRD-LIFE ON THE DESERT HILLS 
However grateful be our memories, yet ’twere idle to deny that 
these Red Sea ranges are in truth but a barren upland, and that 
nothing save abounding enthusiasm would ever wrench from them 
the full secret of their hidden treasures. To claim that such qualities 
characterised our expedition of 1913-14 is no egotism on the part of 
its feeblest member. 
An outline of the zoological features of The Deserts has been 
given in a previous chapter ; a few local details are added here under 
specific heads:— 
Curved-Bill Desert Lark ( Certhilauda alaudipes).~ T Y\\\s big 
lark is equally distributed on highland and lowland alike—and in the 
deserts of the interior. The photos (facing pp. 356 and 358) by 
Captain Lynes show its method of nesting. 
Photo. No. 1.-—Nest built inlow scrub-bush in the desert, its 
base just touching the ground below: ready for eggs on 
April 9th at Sarrowit, 3500 feet. 
Photo. No. 2.—Another nest on saltings near the coast. Built 
alongside a hummock, and sheltered beneath the wreckage 
of a sand-smothered shrub. Contained two hard-sat eggs, 
Port Sudan, April 14th. 
Sand-Larks (Ammomanes). —There are two species. The larger, 
A. deserti , big as a skylark, pale unicolorous sandy-brown; the second, 
1 Sir F. J. Jackson questions this, and his doubt well-nigh signs the 
death-warrant of my conjecture. He suggests that the unknown animals 
may have been impala, which at that time were “ so harassed in their 
bush-haunts by the Wandorobo that they took to the plains and spent the 
whole day in the open.” 
