388 
Mr. I). A. Bannerman : First Impressions [Ibis, 
Field-glasses were substituted for the collector's gun, and 
much of my time—some eight weeks in all—was taken up in 
visiting the marvellous Homan and Punic remains of which 
northern Africa holds such a wonderful store. 
We left Marseilles on a bitterly cold morning of February 
last, in the S.S. 4 Due d’Aumale’—the best steamer of the 
Oompagnie Transatlantique plying between that port and 
Tunis. The voyage was calm but uneventful, and to my 
surprise neither Petrels nor Shearwaters were seen. The 
change in twenty-four hours from heavy clouds and chilly 
east winds to a cloudless sky and hot sun was as welcome 
as it was sudden ; and as we passed along the entire westerly 
coast of Sardinia within easy sight of the little white houses 
dotted along its cliffs, an interesting, though restricted, view 
of this island was obtained. From the sea it looked somewhat 
uninteresting, monotonous low hills succeeding one another 
until the more mountainous southern extremity of the island 
was reached. 
In the early morning of the 4th of February we steamed 
past the ruins of ancient Carthage into the calm waters 
of the Bay of Tunis—up the canal which the French 
have ingeniously constructed through the lake to the pros¬ 
perous capital of Tunisia. Tunis strikes the traveller 
immediately as being a thoroughly well-planned, well- 
administered town—the French have shown their wisdom 
in preserving intact the large Arab quarter, the souks and 
bazaars of which are probably without rival anywhere in the 
world. But it is of the impressions of an ornithologist that 
I wish to write, in the hope that others may be stimulated to 
follow the excellent example set by Mr. Joseph Whitaker 
and make Tunisia their 44 happy hunting-ground.” 
The town of Tunis is itself by no means a bad centre for 
the ornithologist ; many delightful excursions can be made, 
and highly-interesting localities visited within a short dis¬ 
tance of the city. The electric train which runs to Carthage 
and La Marsa crosses and then partly encircles the wide 
Lac de Tunis—a broad sheet of water which has long been 
the haunt of the Flamingo (Phoenicopterus antiquoruni ). 
