as true of bird life as any other. Elsewhere I have referred to the beauty and charm of Lake Menzaleh to all naturalists, and I do really think that to get anything like a complete view of Egyptian bird life a visit ought to be paid to some one or other of the lakes, and of course Menzaleh is far and away the best and biggest. But though I suggest a visit, I would not care to have it understood I recommend it as a health resort or place to live in. I write this here, because there are two considerable Cormorant rookeries or breeding-stations that I visited on Lake Menzaleh—there may be others I did not find, but these two I did find, and they will ever live in my memory as the most poisonous plots of earth I have ever stood on. I have been to Cormorant rookeries before, and well know that they don’t smell like rose-gardens. The peculiarity of this great lake is, that it is, and always has been, a great drainage-bed for the whole of Egypt. The result of having been a drainage-bed for all these untold years is that when you stick a pole, or your oar, into the mud and then pull it out, you seem to all at once take the cork out of a bottle containing the most appalling stinks and gases that ever were engendered. One day I was stalking Cormorants on a long flat island of irregular shape, and came to a point where I had to cross about ten or fifteen yards of water. The island was in the middle of the lake, and far away from town or village, and without thinking of consequences I took my boots off and started to wade across. The first step or two was on the shallow shelly shore, but three or four feet and I sank into mud, and as at each step I lifted my feet I let loose ten thousand legions of ancient stinks, the water bubbled and fizzled with them, and even slimy, blear-eyed, unwholesome fish slunk hurriedly away. Reaching the other side, I looked for some clean water to wash my feet, and did so; but it was awkward, as I had to hold my boots and socks in one hand and my nose in the other; but wash as I would the atrocious smell would not go, and I declined to put those evil-smelling things into my boots, and I couldn’t take my feet off; so there I was—the whole island was a swamp, couldn’t sit down anywhere, all puddles and wet, and the more I dabbled and washed the more it seemed to stir up new combinations of flavours never before conceived. So I shouted and shouted, and at last one of the crew heard, and brought out the small boat and rescued me; most mercifully I had carbolic soap with me, and so managed to at last get clean. The lake is nowhere very deep, but is absolutely full of fish; you constantly see them jumping out of the water for a breath of fresh air, and I don’t blame them. The pools have crowds of small fry, and the larvæ of thousands of insects; indeed, it is “a heaven for mosquitoes and a damp hell for men.” It is this extraordinary profusion of life bred in the water that causes it to be such a fine feeding-ground for the birds, but everything that comes out of that lake is slimy and smelling. In April, when I was at Menzaleh, the birds had not begun nesting, but there was every sign of quite a big Cormorant colony. I counted the sites of more than twenty nests on one island alone, and I saw Cormorants off and on nearly every day of my two weeks’ stay.
Needless to say, the Cormorant is entirely a fish-feeding bird, and usually lives on or near the sea. The fact that a colony has been for so long now established up the river is certainly interesting, and it will be curious to see if these new great water-works do cause any further extension of their area. Mr. Erskine Nicol told me he saw two Cormorants flying down the river in February of this year (1909), at Luxor—one was an adult bird showing a very white head,—and that within his seventeen years of residence he did not think he had ever seen them so far up as Luxor before. The young birds have no pure white on the head, and have the breast a more or less dull greyish-white.
LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL
Larus fuscus
Back and wings dark slaty blackish grey; primaries black, with a large white spot on first primary near the point; rest of plumage pure white; legs and gill yellow, latter with a red spot on lower mandible; eyes yellow, eyelids red. Length, 23 inches.
IN all probability whenever a gull is seen it is most likely to be this one, as in my experience throughout Egypt it is, I think, the commonest of all. The next in order is the Black-headed Gull, but, unfortunately, in the winter months it is without its black cap, which causes it to escape notice.
The Gulls do on the water what the Kites do on the land—they act as scavengers; and it matters not whether you are arriving at Alexandria or on board a steamer at Assoan, you will, alike from end to end of Egypt, find these birds busy, searching for every scrap of waste thrown into the river, which river is the main drain of the country. The use that these birds are is therefore enormous, and they, in common with Vultures and Kites, ought to be protected and on no account shot. This year of 1909 I have seen more of these three species shot than ever before. The wily native who stalks up and down outside hotels with a gun slung over his shoulder, and seizes on unwary newcomers with great promises of apocryphal quail- and snipe-shooting, frequently—so that his patron shall not come home without any bag at all—suggests shooting every poor inoffensive bird within range. That done, the poor Kite or Gull is borne home, and laid out on the hotel steps for the further honour, glory, and kudos of the native shekarry.
It should always be remembered that the immature birds of most species differ materially from the adult: this is the case with all the Gulls, and, I own, makes their identification a matter of considerable difficulty. In the young there is no pure white and pearly grey plumage, but they are dirty-coloured, brown-spotted, rather uninteresting-looking birds, but as they have just as ravenous an appetite as their parents, and as they satisfy that appetite with the filth that is thrown out of a scavenger’s basket, they are fully as useful as the more attractively plumaged adults. Where they can get it, they like fish before anything, be it the sprat of the clear ocean water, or the sweepings of the fish-market. At Damietta, where there is a great