Part 6
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
The colour of the upper plumage on body is so delicate in quality that it is hard to say if it should be called a lilac grey or pinky grey, whilst in certain lights it might be called a sandy brown; the head is, with the cheeks, neck, and breast, a pearly pink; the flanks are barred with rich chestnut and black on a warm white breast; white on the ear coverts and a white spot in front of the eye in the variety known as Cholmondely; legs yellow; eyes brown; beak a brilliant orange. The hen bird is without the bright chestnut bars on the flanks, and is altogether a paler-coloured greyish-buff, and without white on the face. Total length, 9 inches.
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
[Illustration: 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_
Plumage--Upper parts brown marked with grey, rufous, and black, a buff line over eye and on crown of head, a semicircular collar of dark brown on throat; lower parts lighter, streaked with black down centre of feathers, beak brown, legs pale warm brown, eyes hazel. Total length, 7·5 inches.
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
[Illustration: 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
General plumage a bright clear yellowish sand colour; forehead a bright burnt sienna; crown of head a light lilac-grey; eyebrows white; eyes brown; legs white. Length, 10 inches.
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
[Illustration: 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
Upper plumage dark metallic alternating green and purple; a dark crest of upward curling pointed feathers; under plumage white; black chest; orange under tail coverts; beak black; legs brown; eyes dark brown. Total length, 13 inches.
This is the "Lapwing" or "Peewit" of England, and is a rarer bird in Egypt than at home. But if you look sharp out, you ought to see it at least once or twice in a run up the river, in small or larger flocks--I do not ever remember to have seen it singly. Why I have chosen this bird as one of our fifty is, because go where you will, north or south, you see the undoubted counterfeit presentment of this bird engraven on the walls of all the temples.
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.
[Illustration: GREEN PLOVER OR LAPWING]
SPUR-WINGED PLOVER
Hoplopterus spinosus
Arabic, _Zic-zac_
Crown, nape, chin, centre of throat, breast, and tail black; white cheeks, white under and above tail, back and sides of wings a grey-brown, a sharp hard spur on point of shoulder, bill, feet and legs black, eyes rich crimson. Entire length, 12 ins.
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
[Illustration: 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_
Top of head black, as also is a band through eye which meets the black and across chest; wing and sides of back a very beautiful pale lilac blue-grey, under-parts white, lower throat and flanks a creamy rufous, legs bluish, eye brown. Total length, 8·5 inches.
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
[Illustration: BLACK-HEADED PLOVER]