CHAPTER XII
FEATHERS, AND THE PLACES THEY FREQUENT
From time to time I am asked a great many questions regarding the Sahara, and nothing has pleased me more than to find that an astonishing number of people are interested in Nature, and want to know something of the wild life in the country of my travels. Invariably the first questions put by my interrogators are: “What lives in the Great Desert?” and “However do creatures exist in such a land?”
Queries of the kind bring home realisation of how firmly is planted the popular conception that the whole of the Sahara is desert, and how difficult it becomes, once a belief is firmly planted, to convey, by a broad sweep of the hand, or pen, the complete aspect of any land by proxy. In general, it can be said that awe of the Great Desert is the main feature that has taken hold in the mind’s-eye of the public up to the present time, while the manifold changes of locality, that are common to the completed character of any country, are, as secluded havens, almost entirely overlooked. The romance of the Sahara has, as it were, swept us off our balance, and the picture is out of perspective, in the rush of workaday lives that permit of little time for deep contemplation of subjects other than those that are of immediate concern.
On the other hand, when work of exploration is undertaken in a foreign land, it is the traveller’s first purpose to seek into every nook and corner, far from the beaten track; and, where the land is richest in vegetation, water, and seclusion, he expects to find the rarest prizes.
In country like the Sahara the collector is sure of his ground. The blank ranges of sand hold nothing, or next to nothing; and the desert is vast. Wherefore he ranges far and seeks for sheltered places that give of some fertility; aware that, in a land where the struggle for existence is intense, the creatures of the wild will have sought out the havens before him.
It may be of interest to describe a few of the places where birds are found.
The caravan has been travelling for a few days over absolute desert. I have observed nothing except a single house-fly, noticeable, in exaggerated relief, simply because of the utter absence of other life. Ending this tract of desert, there are pebbly edges with scattered tufts of grass; farther back, a series of slight hollows with a few bushes; and, farther on still, a clump of acacias that screen the old uninhabited well that the caravan is heading for to refill sagging waterskins.
Approaching this welcome change of country, an Arab Bustard takes to flight and clears right away; alert and very shy.
Along the stony margin the most likely birds are larks, and, as it is deep desert beyond, I am not surprised to see, matching the sand in paleness, a single large Curve-billed Desert Lark, and two or three Buff Saharan Larks.
Farther on, among the low shrubs and grass, I disturb a family of Brown Bush Babblers: birds about the size of a thrush that fly very low, and in the formation of a covey of partridges. They emit a fussy, piping call while in flight, but do not go far before they pitch into cover again.