A VERY common bird throughout Egypt. It seems strange that this should be the only Crow—the pure black one has never been noticed—and if any black crow-like bird is noticed it will probably be found to be the Raven. Shelley says, “It begins breeding towards the end of February, when its nest may be procured in every clump of sont trees,”[4] but I have seen young ones with their parents flying about in early February, which would mean they must have been hatched much earlier, and it would therefore seem certain that they rear two broods in the year. It does not seem here to have quite the same character that it has elsewhere—it is less aggressive, tamer, not such a highwayman-robber sort of bird—and though it is so common I cannot ever remember to have seen a flock of them together in the real open country, they seem to go in pairs generally; but in towns and such places as the Zoological Gardens of Cairo they do foregather in large numbers. Its food is generally carrion, but it will take any living thing—lizards, mice, and even beetles—that comes in its way, and I have no doubt rob the nests of small birds, not only of eggs but also of the unfledged young. It is distinctly a handsome bird and it walks well, holding its head high, whilst its flight is strong and easy.

It was entirely owing to a certain Crow, we are told, that Cairo got its name, for it seems that when the architect was planning out the city, he arranged that the first stone of the great surrounding wall should be laid at a particular moment dictated by the astrologers. This moment was to be made known to the architect by the pulling of a cord extending from where he was to the place where the astrologers were assembled. The momentous day arrived, the architect awaited the signal, and suddenly the cord was shaken, and the stone was laid. But a horrid mistake had been made. The astrologers had not pulled the cord; a wretched old Crow had heavily perched upon it, and shaken by his weight, the unlucky signal was given! From the vexation caused by this incident

HOODED CROW
HOODED CROW

the city was called Kahira[5] (the “vexatious” or “unlucky”). Kahira softened, soon became Cairo.

The Raven, as already stated, is to be seen from time to time, and especially where the cliffs come down close to the river. It is so similar to the ordinary Raven that it is only after the feathers of the head and neck have been worn for some time that the brown look appears which has given rise to the specific name of the Brown-necked Raven. Shelley says it nests in date-palm trees, but the only nests I myself have seen have been in the lofty cliffs of Deir-el-Bahari and Abu Fêada, and again in some of the ruins of temples, at Karnak for instance. There is, further, one more Raven, the Abyssinian, which is smaller by some three inches than the Brown-necked, but it is very similar in all other respects.

EGYPTIAN TURTLE-DOVE OR PALM DOVE

Turtur senegalensis

THE Doves have all had a sort of saintly character thrust on them, which they hardly deserve, as they are about the most pugnacious of birds, which is hardly a saintly qualification! It is true a pair of Doves by themselves, kept in semi-domestication, do show a sort of maudlin affection, but many of the smaller birds—Wrens, Tits, Warblers, and Swallows, and many others—all show equal, if not greater true affection to each other and absolute self-abnegation in their untiring devotion to their offspring. Why, therefore, the Dove has been peculiarly ticketed as

EGYPTIAN PALM DOVES
EGYPTIAN PALM DOVES

a model of connubial affection I really do not know, but it has, and I suppose it will be treated as a sort of sacred symbol to the end of time.

This particular Egyptian Turtle-dove is also sometimes called the Palm-dove; a good name, as it is always to be found wherever there are palm trees; on them it roosts and in their branches it nests. When flying it opens its tail wide, and then shows the broad white and lilac-grey of those side feathers which when sitting are all hidden away under the two central dull brown tail feathers. Its flight through and among trees is very rapid and tortuous, and it is perhaps when in the dense clump of palm trees that it is most interesting, as it is so tame that it allows of a close approach. In any of the palm groves, and palms are everywhere in Egypt, the bird lover will be able to learn something of this very Oriental Dove. The first thing he will note is that clearly some of the many that are flying here and there, and feeding on the ground around him, are quite young birds, even though it may be December or January, and it is certain that this true inhabitant of warm sunny Egypt has two broods at least in the year.

SENEGAL SAND-GROUSE

Pterocles senegallus

Arabic, Gutta

THERE are three different varieties of Sand-grouse in Egypt—the Singed, the Coroneted, and the Senegal. The last has been selected as it is the one with which I am best acquainted, but either of the others have an equal claim, since, though occupying different localities, they are to be met with throughout the area covered by this book. All the Sand-grouse are very similar in their habits, they are all children of the desert, but come down, either to feed or to water, to the cultivated ground at morning and evening. Captain Shelley gives absolute localities where they might be found (he was writing in 1872), and ever since he gave

SAND-GROUSE
SAND-GROUSE

that information there has been each winter a regular invasion of British and other ardent sportsmen, to each of the places named, to have “a little Sand-grouse shooting.” Result: at those places there are now none whatever, and no one living there seems to know anything more about Sand-grouse than that annually large numbers of men come with shooting equipment ready to make record bags, and go away without firing a shot. This being so, the present author thinks it best not to give localities, for though there is no danger of Sand-grouse ever being exterminated, as if persecuted they have the whole of these great African deserts to fall back and back upon, yet the hunger of the modern man to go out and kill something bearing the least resemblance to a game-bird is such, that if it were told that at certain places near the river they could be got, in a single season or two that place would be absolutely cleared. It seems rather churlish perhaps, but this book is not written to aid men to shoot Egyptian birds, but simply to recognise the birds seen; and the first essential is that there should be birds to see. Sand-grouse seem to be pleasant sociable birds, happy in their family life; at the non-breeding season they foregather into large companies, in which order they fly great distances to and fro to whatever pools or water they customarily visit each evening, and it is at these places that the most deadly shooting can take place, for they are very regular in their “flighting.” Captain Tindall Lucas tells me that the Coroneted Sand-grouse drinks later in the evening and earlier in the morning than the other forms and practically when all light has gone; the more usual time being just before the sun sets. The freedom with which they fly is extraordinary, it is more with the power of the Swallow than any game-bird; they mount very high up into the air, and go wheeling round and round, now mounting nearly out of sight, then rushing headlong down in a long swooping curve till near the earth, when, perhaps, they will turn off sharp at some angle and go tearing away in some opposite direction. This is when they are in flocks, and out on the wide open desert; when coming down to water, or near cultivation, or among the coarse Halfa grass, they fly with direct intent, and waste no time about it.

Their cry must be heard to be appreciated; it is usually written as “gutta, gutta, gutta,” but no description of birds’ notes ever seems to be of much value; it is, however, so very individual that once heard would never be forgotten, and it has, as all Nature’s notes have, an entire suitability to the surroundings, and like the boundless, yellow, dry, herbless desert it is wild and weird, yet beautiful.

I remember once a quite intelligent Scotch keeper answering an inquiry, as to what Ptarmigan found to eat amongst the barren hilltops where they live with the amazing statement, delivered in the most solemn manner, “that they just lived on the little stones,” and when doubt was thrown on his information, declared that he had often cut them open to see, and had never found anything in their crops “but just the wee stones.” And the inquiry might well be made as to the source of food of the Sand-grouse when one sees a large flock in the desert places that they love to be in during the day, if one did not know of their wondrous powers of flight, which make nothing of flying scores of miles to the far-distant edges of cultivated ground.

I have watched Sand-grouse quite close at hand, and when on the ground they are rather dumpy-shaped and uninteresting; if disturbed, they pull themselves together a bit and run off to a short distance, and settle down again in a crouching position; if again disturbed they probably rise altogether, with their “gutta, gutta” cry and fly miles away. In running they go like clockwork mice; you hardly see their legs or feet, and they rise and fall over the varying contours of the ground just like a little running wave.

From Alexandria to Assoan and beyond right to the Soudan, Sand-grouse are to be met with, and though every one may not see this typical desert bird, it is there if only they know where to look for it.

SAND PARTRIDGE

Ammoperdix heyi

THIS is a resident Egyptian bird, and I include it in my list because, though the traveller up the Nile may not see it, any who go across the desert around the Pyramid district, and even those who journey only a little out of Assoan, ought quite certainly to come across it. It is a most charming, lively little bird, bustling about; you rarely see it quiet for long, even in January it still keeps in coveys, and they go running along in and out of the boulders, and, if on a hillside, they are very quick and agile in hopping high up on to the rocks above them. They very seldom fly if they can possibly get out of your way by running. I very well remember seeing them on the old-time road from Kennah to Kosseir on the Red Sea. I saw them first before reaching Wady Hammamat, and then more frequently as we passed through the ancient quarries. They seem to use this old roadway as their regular feeding-ground, for there, owing to the passage of caravans backwards and forwards, they find a perpetual source of food from the frequent droppings. Their movements were so quick and their little bodies so round and plump that, even with my glass on them, I could not settle the colour of their legs, till I got a closer inspection of those in the Cairo Zoological Gardens. As they run they utter a little cheery sort of “cheep, cheep” call, and the whole party seem always happy, if not in boisterous spirits, which, when one considers the hardness of their life in these sterile wastes, seems somewhat remarkable. Grain and seeds are their staple food, but I distinctly saw one once and again make a dart at some passing insect, and no doubt here, as at home, they love the ants’ eggs that must exist, as ants are ever present with you in this hot desert country. As far as my own notes go, I do not think they ever come down even to the outskirts

HEY’S SAND-PARTRIDGE
HEY’S SAND-PARTRIDGE

of the cultivation, but keep exclusively to the sand (possibly in spring or summer they may approach nearer to the haunts of man, but I have no evidence), which makes the fact of their being, as it is alleged they are, exceedingly good eating, very remarkable, for one would be disposed to think they would be thin, tough, and tasteless. I have it on good authority, that as a game-bird for the table, they are far to be preferred to our own Partridge, being, though small, very plump and of a fine game flavour. All Partridges seem peculiar in doing well on very little—at home one often wonders during a hard winter at their surviving at all—for they are never fed like the pampered Pheasants, and not only do they survive, but they seem to carry as much flesh when shot in a hard winter as they do in September when grain lies scattered in profusion on every stubble. Although one has praised its seeming happy way of living, no account of this bird would be complete without some notice of its extraordinary pugnacity. This is confined admittedly to the males, but with them it is, as with all so-called game-birds, a ruling passion, of which our game-cocks are of course well-known examples; but it may not be so generally known that in many countries—Greece, amongst others—Partridges are kept for this special purpose of fighting for the delectation of their owners, and though I am not aware of this little sportsman, the Sand Partridge, having been kept for this purpose, I am sure if it was it would not disgrace the traditions of its family, for a more pugnacious little bird than it never walked. The males have a peculiar habit of standing ever and anon quite upright puffing out all their breast feathers, so that they display all the beauty of their rich chestnut and black-barred plumage. The naturalists have discovered that in certain districts the birds all have a white spot over the beak on the forehead, and to this variety is given the name of Cholmondely’s Sand Partridge, whilst the other type, with only one white spot behind the eye on the cheeks, is known as Hey’s Sand Partridge. Here, as in the case of most birds, the description of the plumage is taken from the male bird, the female nearly always being very much more sober coloured. This cannot too often be repeated, as not recognizing this fact often leads to mistake; and again, in the matter of the measurements of the birds, the size given is that of the average bird, for in almost all birds you get larger or smaller individuals, and that veteran naturalist Wallace has just lately drawn attention to the quite extraordinary variations in the different parts of the Common Redwing, showing that even in twenty birds the dimensions varied considerably.

THE QUAIL

Coturnix communis

Arabic, Salwa

THE call of the male Quail is one of those strange sounds that have around it much of the halo that the song of the Cuckoo has at home, because it marks a definite date—the passing of winter and the coming of summer. For the ordinary traveller this call, which by some has been rendered as sounding like “What we whee,” is all that he will ever know of the bird’s presence, as it is curiously skulking in habits, and never rises unless suddenly alarmed by one’s walking through the cover in which it hides. Personally I agree with a friend who said the sound was identical with the sort of cheeping call of a young turkey poult, but all descriptions of birds’ songs I hold to be rather vain. Each one for himself

QUAIL Flying over growing corn.
QUAIL
Flying over growing corn.

must notice and learn from actual experience, and the various calls and notes are so individual that when once really noted are never forgotten, and to at all a good ear these aids to identification are as sure as if the very bird were placed in his hands. Quail pass through Egypt when on their way to their more northerly breeding quarters early in March and April. Some few may remain the year through, but they are a small minority. The return to Egypt is from September to November, and it is during these journeyings that the vast quantities are caught in nets, which later are sent to every European city for the tables of the rich. Mr. C. D. Burnett-Stuart very kindly has given me the following notes:—

“From Alexandria to Port Said the whole length of coast is practically hung with nets; but Government lately has forbidden the placing of the nets on the actual foreshore which it controls, which were the most killing positions, and the nets can now only be placed farther back on private and cultivated ground. The numbers of Quail which must migrate passes belief, for it is recorded that in Coronation Year five million were ordered and supplied for the English market alone.”

“The route which they take leaving Egypt seems to be roughly the great valley of the Nile right to its entrances to the Mediterranean; but on the return journey from Europe they seem to reach the shores of Egypt, then turn eastwards and follow the line of the Suez Canal and Red Sea to about Kosseir and the old river-bed, then across the desert to the Nile, and away spreading themselves over the heart of Africa.”

“On their arrival in Egypt they are so dog-tired that they can sometimes be caught by hand, and have been actually so caught in houses that they have entered in a sort of dazed condition. The poor Quail are also caught in large numbers by a drop-net whilst on passage down the river, in clover, or any other suitable crop, the fowler calling them up to his net by a reed whistle. Quail shooting used to be a more favourite sport than it is now since Denshawie days, and two guns have on one occasion obtained 252 birds in the day at Ayat, fifty miles south of Cairo.”

After this one is not disposed to say “liar” even to the ancient historian who recorded the sinking of certain vessels in the ocean, because of the innumerable Quail that settled on them; and one readily accepts the story of the Israelites’ camp being covered all over two cubits high by falling Quails. Canon Tristam has a note on this incident and “the fully satisfied hungry people,” that the very “Hebrew name selav, in its Arabic form salwa, signifies fat, very descriptive of the round plump form and fat flesh of the Quail.”

Ten is said to be the average of the clutch of eggs laid, which number partly explains the enormous flocks which come year after year in spite of the incessant raids made upon them. If by chance you do see Quails rise from the crops you are instantly reminded of partridges; but they never rise as high as the latter birds, and though I have heard of their answering to being “driven,” I should think they give very unsatisfactory shooting, as they are rarely more than a foot or two above the crops, whether they be clover or young corn.

CREAM-COLOURED COURSER

Cursorius gallicus

THIS is one of the birds commonly selected as an illustration of “protective coloration.” It lives in the sandy deserts, and its plumage displays a curiously harmonious blending of the various colours to be found on the dry, stony, sandy soil. The very markedly contrasting colours of the head are just the very same that you see in the pebbles or stones, and the smoother passages of delicate buff and greyish-yellow are the counterpart of the curving slopes of pure sand; whilst even the startling enamel-like white of the legs resembles the bleached, hard, dry stalks of the desert vegetation. When the bird crouches down it is practically invisible, though, as the phrase is, it may be “right under your nose,” but as a matter of fact it seems most often to perversely upset the whole value of what we men deem its valuable

CREAM-COLOURED COURSER
CREAM-COLOURED COURSER

protective asset by running about, and drawing attention to itself by continually uttering its peculiar cry. And when it rises and flies off, as it frequently does, in little bands or parties, all utter the same note with incessant, noisy reiteration. I first saw this bird when riding across the desert towards Kosseir on the Red Sea, and I well remember my surprise at seeing how completely different was the position assumed by the birds to that which all the pictures with which I was familiar had led me to expect. It runs about very high on the legs, and every other moment lifts its body up nearly perpendicularly, looking sharply round right and left before again making another quick little run in search of some speck of food. It struck me as being a peculiarly cheery little bird, and seemed to be of a sociable nature, always being in little parties, and often when they all rose together they would be quickly joined by some others, who had been before out of sight, and together they would go wheeling about in mid-air, mounting high up into the sky, till the eye unaided lost sight of them, but all the time their whereabouts was certain, because of their most musical, reiterated cry, which somewhat resembles that of the Sand Grouse.

It loves the deserts, and as far as I know never leaves them save to come down, as the Sand-grouse do, to some water-hole. Round the Pyramids, and even within sight of the babel of guides and donkey boys, this child of the desert may be seen, but it always keeps, as it were, in touch with the boundless open sandy tracts to which it can beat a safe retreat. In one of the large show-cases in the great Central Hall of the British Museum of Natural History, they are shown in a group with other desert birds and beasts, but it is sad to see how the colours of their plumage get—even with all the care of dust-proof cases—dull, faded and dingy, giving little idea of the brilliantly clear, delicately coloured plumage of the living bird, as seen under the clear blue of an Egyptian sky.

THE GREEN PLOVER OR LAPWING

Vanellus cristatus

Many see it, but are misled by the rather mad armlike-looking thing brandished out in front of the bird’s face, and never see the undoubted portrait of a Plover till it is actually pointed out. Why this bird should have been chosen, and why the owl and the vulture should have been selected from the great mass of Egypt’s birds, we cannot explain, but can only draw attention to the fact, and find interest in the thought that just as now this bird may be seen, so in the old far-away dynastic days it must have been a familiar bird, or it would certainly not have been selected for use in picture and hieroglyph. Some few breed in Egypt, it is said; but certainly the bulk all go north and west when spring-time comes. This is the bird that supplies gourmands with their annual dainty of Plovers’ eggs; it lays four in the simplest of nests—a mere slight depression in the ground—and as soon as the young are hatched, within a few hours of actual birth into the outer world, they are running about nimbly on their own little legs, and, at the instigation of their fond parents, catching flies and insects with their own little bills. In this matter of the helplessness, or reverse, of newly-hatched birds, is a most interesting field for research. The proud eagle’s young are, for a long time, as helpless as our own babies, and, it is alleged, have sometimes to be forcibly pushed out of the home; whilst, as we have seen, Plovers’ young are born almost self-supporting. And this precocity, as it seems, is also seen in young ducklings, and in all the so-called game-birds: all they ask for is their mother’s wings to protect them against the weather, and warmly shelter them at night.

GREEN PLOVER OR LAPWING
GREEN PLOVER OR LAPWING

SPUR-WINGED PLOVER

Hoplopterus spinosus

Arabic, Zic-zac

WHETHER this or the Black-headed Plover is to have the honour of being the bird Herodotus has made famous will probably ever be a matter for the Schoolmen to argue over, but lately I came across Dr. Leith Adam’s note, explaining the reason why he insists that the Spur-winged Plover is the real friend of the crocodile and not the Black-headed,—i.e. “Codling not Short.” “The crocodile, tired of keeping its jaws wide open, just shuts them, to the everlasting peril of the bird; were it not for those two sharp spurs on his wings he of course would be suffocated and later doubtless swallowed, but by these spurs, when the roof comes down on the top of him, he just reminds his patron of his existence, by jabbing the tenderest parts of the interior of his mouth.” This is said invariably to refreshen the sleepy crocodile’s faculties, so that he remembers his faithful dentist and immediately opens his jaws and releases the prisoner, to whom one hopes he expresses profound regret.

It is to be seen on the sand-banks in Lower Egypt, but gets noticeably less frequent as one journeys into Upper Egypt, and one is disposed to think is growing less in number year by year, as so many of the pure river-side birds are, by reason of the now continually passing, noisy, wash-producing steamers.

It seems to be distinctly a quarrelsome bird, anyhow when breeding, and both male and female are more often than not to be seen having some row or another with some poor inoffensive bird who has ventured too near their nest. At times it stands up practically perpendicular, and jerks its head and body up and down with clockwork regularity till the cause of its upset has ceased, when it draws in its head and sinks it deep between its shoulders, as is shown in the accompanying drawing. Its nest is a mere depression in the sand, and it lays three or four eggs which are very similar to our common Green Plover or Lapwing.

Von Heuglin relates a Mohammedan legend: That Allah, having asked all things great and small

SPUR-WINGED PLOVER
SPUR-WINGED PLOVER

to come to a great feast, all came except this Plover. Allah rebuked him. The Plover said he had fallen asleep and forgot all about the fixture. Allah, who knows all things, knew he lied, and answered, “Then from this time forth thou shalt know no sleep,” and he made these two spurs to grow on the points of his shoulders so that he shall suffer great pain if he try to sleep by putting his head under his wing.

BLACK-HEADED PLOVER

Pluvianus aegyptius

Arabic, Ter el timsah

This is regarded as quite certainly the bird known in ancient days as the Crocodile Bird. It was held to be the faithful attendant of this fearsome reptile, warning it of danger: and when the creature it fed was full, this little bird was supposed to attend to the proper cleaning of the ogre’s teeth! For this purpose, we are told, the crocodile would lie quietly with its great mouth wide open whilst this brave little dentist ran about briskly right into the open jaws and deftly removed noisome leech or scrap of food left between those ugly fangs, and never showing the slightest fear. It is a pretty story, but as there are now no crocodiles in Egypt proper, the ordinary traveller has no chance of seeing if this be so or no. But though the crocodiles are gone the Black-headed Plover is

BLACK-HEADED PLOVER
BLACK-HEADED PLOVER

still to be seen by those going up or down by water. Mr. E. Cavendish Taylor, writing in 1867, says, “This bird is abundant all along the Nile above Cairo, wherever the banks of the river are muddy.” Captain Shelley in 1870, referring to it, says, “It is plentifully distributed throughout Egypt and Nubia, but it is most abundant in Upper Egypt between Siool and Thebes.” I myself saw it many times in 1875, whilst going up and returning, in good quiet-fashioned way, by dahabeah; but when I again went over the same ground in 1908, although going very slowly and stopping every day, I only find, from my notebook, that we saw it three or four times in our six weeks’ journey from Thebes to Cairo. All that we saw were wild and anything but the confiding birds one has been taught to regard them. I think by far the most notable thing about this bird is its curious habit of laying its eggs on the sand, and then carefully burying them with the clear purpose of letting the genial sun do the bulk of the work of hatching out. Captain Verner gives a most interesting and detailed account of watching the movements of one of these birds on a sandbank. He went to the place, he writes, “And at the precise spot turned over the sand, and about half an inch below the surface discovered three fresh eggs, which the artful bird had completely buried.... Still I was unable to account in my own mind for the very energetic movements to and from the water which I had witnessed on this occasion, until I received an account from a cousin, Lieutenant George Verner, of the Borderers, who was stationed about forty miles farther down the river than I was, which solved the mystery, as follows:—‘On 25th April I was waiting in a boat alongside of a sandbank, and my attention was attracted by a pair of Black-headed Plovers which kept flitting about quite close to me. I noticed that one of them was continually wetting its breast at the water’s edge about ten yards below our boat, and then running up the bank to a spot about the same distance inshore of us, when it would squat down and remain about two minutes or so, after which it would get up, and, running down to the water’s edge above us, fly round to the spot where it had dabbled previously.... At the spot where the bird had been crouching I found a clutch of eggs half buried in the sand, their tops only being visible; the sand immediately surrounding them was moist, although the bank I was on was an expanse of dry burning sand.’” From this it seems clear, as Captain Verner says, that this plover has learnt that with judicious damping, the sand and the sun will do the hatching, thereby removing the necessity of having to spend long days and nights brooding over the eggs. It is, however, very curious that no other of the large number of birds that lay their eggs on the desert sand or hard dry mud-banks should do this: and especially curious since these birds are first cousins, as one might say, to the Spur-winged Plover—which breeds often within a few hundred yards of where Black-headed ones are—and this bird sits continuously till the young are hatched. The egg resembles that of the Red Grouse and is not very plover-like in character—indeed, some ornithologists will have it this bird is not really a Plover, but is more allied to the Coursers.

LITTLE RINGED-PLOVER

Aegialitis minor

THIS bird no one can fail to see, as, though it is in other countries a shy bird, it is here amazingly tame and familiar. By the river, by canal-side, round every small pool or watercourse, there you will see this cheerful little compact-shaped bird. All last winter, 1907-8, I had seen great numbers in the Thebes district, but in this winter of 1909 I have on Lake Menzaleh seen literally thousands of Ring-Plover. I cannot be sure they were all “the Little Ring-Plover”; that they were Ring-Plovers, I am certain, but as there are three species of Ring-Plover—the Great, the Middle, and the Little (and Captain Shelley strangely gives the dimensions of the Middle form as smaller than the Little)—it is safest not to be too dogmatic, and only call them Ring-Plovers. It is a very active bird, incessantly on the search for food,

RINGED-PLOVER
RINGED-PLOVER

and the pace that those little legs can go, when they do their best, is amazing. It has a charming way of ever and anon stopping suddenly still and looking steadily at you, with head held very slightly aside, seeming to try to read right through you, and discover if you are friend or foe. When it flies its wings are seen to be very sharp and pointed, and bearing some resemblance to a snipe’s—a bird it is often made to do duty for by those romancers, the native gunners, who tempt the uninitiated to accompany them for snipe-shooting, and assure the new-comer these poor little Plover are Snipe—“Egyptian” Snipe.

THE SNIPE

Gallinago coelestis

THE Snipe in some parts of Upper Egypt are so extraordinarily tame—and hardly behave as Snipe do generally—that I have no doubt they are often seen by many who never recognise them as Snipe at all. At the Sacred Lake at Karnak I have seen veritable processions of visitors, headed by a talking dragoman, walk along the path quite near one which was standing at the water’s edge, and if none left the pathway it would remain stolid, but if any boy, or workman, came down to bathe or drink, it just flew across to the other side and at once settled down again. And in the very early morning before the workers arrive, I have stood right on the shore, not screened or hidden in any way, and had Snipe dibbling about in the water not more than five or six yards away. The first time this happened I thought the bird must be wounded or unable to fly, but it was not, and it is only one more proof of the benefit that the Antiquities Department has produced by exercising its authority over the areas it controls. No shooting is allowed on “Antiquities ground,” and birds very soon get to know this, gain confidence, and lose all their natural shyness. Needless to say, in those parts where they are shot they behave as warily as Snipe do at home, and are up and away with their curious “scarpe, scarpe” cry. Years ago the Delta was one of the best snipe-grounds in the world, and an old sportsman in Cairo told me of his getting 93 couples in a day, and as late as 1902 a certain five days’ shooting gave an average of 72 couple per day. In nearly all such bags some Jack Snipe were obtained; and in Mr. M. J. Nicoll’s notes on birds met with at Menzaleh the Jack Snipe is given as the commoner of the two species.

There is nothing to show that Snipe ever breed in Egypt, though there are many localities where it well might, and it is another of the great army of winter migrant visitors that go to the north as spring comes on. It lives entirely on insects and worms, which it procures by probing the soft, black mud with its long, sensitive bill. I have seen Snipe in most unlikely places, and once saw one fly right through an open space at the Ramaseum Temple. From my notes of a night’s watching at a pool I borrow the following: “14th January, 7.30 P.M.—Snipe are squawking, and can hear them coming in on all sides throughout night, which is a dark one; could hear only faint rippling noise at intervals, as some duck or wader moved about, and the earliest call was at 3 A.M., when a Snipe squawked once or twice, then silence again, and only a faint, far-away dog’s bark, and a cricket in the sandbank near my side began churring. At 5 A.M. great splashing at end of pool, and coot began moving. No light showed till after 6, and then one could see duck feeding and moving off, and again little wisps of Snipe went over my head and away.”

THE WOODCOCK

Scolopax rusticula

ACCOUNTS in 1907-8 show that the Woodcock has been obtained fairly frequently, and a case was told me of two being obtained literally by the side of the road from Cairo to the Pyramids in one morning. It is very usual to deplore the existence of “the man with the gun” without in the least really considering the whole matter. That certain men with guns shoot at everything and at all times, breeding season or otherwise, and without any object in killing their victims, is of course deplorable; but the killing of birds in season that can be used as food for man is no offence whatever. Further, from observant good sportsmen has come a full half of all the knowledge of birds that exists, and this cannot be too often dwelt upon, as enthusiasts run riot on this subject, and do damage to a good cause by injudicious condemnation. The accompanying illustration is a small example of what I mean. All know that birds, like ourselves, have eyes and ears, and one knows that the relative positions thereof are as in ourselves—the ear lies behind the eye. No book that I am aware of has any intimation that any other order exists; but one day, a winter or so ago, I shot a Woodcock, and for the purpose of making a minute study of the bird examined it closely, when I found that the ear was in front of the eye. I at once consulted all my bird books, but found no reference to this strange fact. I then examined ten other birds, and though they varied individually, not one but had the ear somewhat in front of the eye.

Fig. 7. Head of Woodcock, to show the position of the Ear.
Fig. 7.
Head of Woodcock, to show the position of the Ear.

The woodcock’s food is mainly obtained by

COMMON SNIPE
COMMON SNIPE

probing. Its bill is richly supplied with very delicate nerves, and it probes the soft mud and ooze in search of those grubs and insects that live there. It also feeds on worms that it obtains above ground, and indeed has a varied diet.

THE PAINTED SNIPE

Rhynchoea capensis