Letters, Announcements, fyc. 379 
I was struck by the vast number of Gulls which closely fol¬ 
lowed our ship, and scrambled for pieces of bread which I 
amused myself by throwing to them. I was also struck by 
the fact that the majority of these Gulls were Larus canus, 
a species I had never previously met with in Egypt. Mixed 
with these were a smaller number of Larus leucoph&us and 
Larus ridibundus. I also saw a few pairs of Larus ichthy - 
aetus, but these majestic birds did not condescend to follow 
our ship or take any notice of the bread thrown to their 
smaller relatives. 
At Suez, where I stayed two days, I noticed the same 
absence of Passerine birds as on former visits ; the ubiqui¬ 
tous Sparrow and the obtrusive Grey Crow ( Corvus cornix), 
which swarm in all other parts of Egypt, were nowhere 
to be seen; the only Passerine birds were Motacilla alba 
and Corvus umbrinus , which last species is, I think, more 
abundant at Suez than anywhere else in Egypt. Thence 
I went to Cairo, and stayed there from February 12th 
to March 1st, when I went up the Nile to Thebes. At Cairo 
I used frequently to spend the half hour before and the half 
hour after sunset in the beautiful Esbekyeh garden. In the 
centre of this is a lake, over which, up to sunset, a quantity 
of Swallows, Hirundo savignii, were always flying about, 
catching insects. Evening after evening I used to see a large 
Sparrow-hawk, Accipiter nisus, which, from its size, I judged 
to be a female, make its appearance just before sunset, while 
the Swallows were still flying about. Of these it never took 
any notice, having perhaps found out by experience that they 
were more trouble to catch than they were worth; but it 
would perch on the top of some tree commanding the lake 
and wait till the sun had set and the Swallows taken them¬ 
selves oft, and in their place a swarm of small Bats came on 
the scene, flitting about over the lake. Now was the time 
for the Hawk^s supper, and it used to dash in among the 
Bats, catch one in an instant, take it off to a tree, and there 
eat it; and it generally found time to catch a second one 
before it got too dark for further operations. I once went 
under the tree where the Hawk was eating its Bat, and picked 
